


words of grace, spellwork delights

by fbismoak (midwestwind)



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Halloween AU, Magic, Romance, Witches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-17
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-08-03 14:57:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 38,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16328183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/midwestwind/pseuds/fbismoak
Summary: Felicity Smoak is a witch. No big deal. She barely uses her magic these days anyway, but when Oliver Queen makes his way into her little town, he brings with him a wind of change. And a strange connection Felicity can't seem to shake - or maybe doesn't want to.(a witch au that's a little bit of sabrina the teenage witch, a little bit of practical magic.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So, this was supposed to be a long one-shot but it's almost 30k and I still haven't finished it so I had to break it up into parts. Hope you enjoy!!
> 
> (Also, this is gonna be a more light-hearted, fluffy witch fic. So, if you're looking for something a little more dark or dramatic, check out felicityollie's witch au [Season of the Witch](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16181336)!)

**I.**

 

Felicity doesn’t believe in magic. Well, okay she doesn’t  _ not _ believe in magic itself. That exists, of course. She just doesn’t believe in it being an answer to all her problems.

 

She learned at a young age that there are no easy answers in life. Some people are handed things and some people work for them. And her socioeconomic standing coupled with her drive put her firmly in the second group. Not that she was complaining.

 

At sixteen, her mother had sat her down for “the talk” – not the sex one, they’d had that shortly after her first period and it was exactly as mortifying for her and exciting for her mother as she had expected it to be. No, “the talk” she’d gotten at sixteen was in preparation for the second time in her young life that she’d found her world turned upside down.

 

“You’re a witch,” Donna Smoak had said with the most stoic expression Felicity had seen since she was seven.

 

“Huh,” she’d replied. “Well, I guess that makes sense.”

 

Because she’s always been practical and it really explained a lot about her life and her mother. Not to mention she’d been having some seriously weird dreams lately and this was a better explanation than anything some quick internet searches for dream theory had given her.

 

Plus, it kind of just felt right. Like something had clicked into place suddenly and really all she  _ could  _ say was ‘huh’ and move forward with this new information. Her mother had only managed a few moments of surprise before realizing that Felicity was taking this the same way she took most new facts.

 

So, here are some fundamental truths; The universe is 13.8 billion years old. The sky is blue because molecules in the air scatter blue light better than red light. Felicity Smoak is a witch.

 

No big deal.

 

\---

 

“You know you’re the most boring witch I’ve ever met, right?”

 

Felicity rolls her eyes and doesn’t bother to respond to the dig, knowing it’s meant – mostly – in jest. Sara dodges a swat from her mother, halting the precise movements of the kitchen knife in her hand long enough to make sure Dinah isn’t coming in for another attempt. She doesn’t, moving past her daughter to drop a few sprigs of fresh lavender into the small porcelain pot on the stove.

 

“Well, I guess not  _ the _ most boring,” Sara amends, continuing chopping the iris roots in front of her. “You could be my sister.”

 

“Sara,” Dinah says in warning this time.

 

Felicity decides to keep her mouth shut now, the conversation taking a sudden turn into territory she’d rather not be a part of. Instead, she focuses on the sandalwood in the mortar in her hand, grinding it down into a powder with the matching stone pestle.

 

Her jobs tend to be the simpler ones. She’s never been amazing with her hands, unless it came to assembling computer parts and tech. Depth perception and all that. She really prefers a keyboard or the act of pulling leaves from stems.

 

She looks over to where Sara is working, a quiet argument brewing between her and Dinah even as neither of them really say anything. Her hands continue to move steadily, the knife moving as if an extension of her, rather than a tool. She always takes this job – the chopping of roots or spices into small pieces to be stored away for later use – because she just has a knack for it.

 

Felicity glances across the kitchen to where Zari pulls rose petals from stems, drops them onto wax paper where they’ll be pressed and dried. Sensing her gaze, Zari glances up and she sees a similar discomfort to her own in her eyes.

 

“I’m just  _ saying _ ,” Sara says, louder now to include the rest of the room in the conversation, “I don’t understand the point of having magic and all this power and history if you’re just going to let it sit inside you doing nothing.”

 

“It’s not doing nothing,” Felicity argues, pressing down a little harder on a particularly stingy clump of chopped sandalwood. “I just don’t think I need to be constantly trying to solve every problem with it.”

 

It’s not an unfamiliar conversation, which means it’s not an unfamiliar response. Sara rolls her eyes, the same way she does every time.

 

“Come on, with your lineage, you should be running the world right now,” she insists. “Not playing IT girl to people who have no idea how powerful you are.”

 

The bell on the door to the sunroom tinkles and Felicity’s own mother comes inside with a basket full of freshly picked plants. Some flowers, some herbs. Felicity stares at the basket, categorizing them all in her mind as Donna begins to settle them on the kitchen island. Amaya comes in behind her, the bells ringing quietly again. Predictably, her hands are covered in dirt.

 

Donna wouldn’t sacrifice a manicure to the garden, but Amaya loves to get her hands covered in earth.

 

“Donna, back me up here, please,” Sara says, pointing the knife across the island towards Felicity. She glares at the point until Sara drops it. “Tell her she’s crazy to let her magic fester.”

 

Donna sighs. “You’re preaching to the choir here, honey. Felicity learned at a young age how to ignore my advice.”

 

Warm hands land on Felicity’s shoulder and she’s immediately overcome with the calming scent of lavender. Dinah stands behind her, squeezing her shoulders gently. The water in the pot is beginning to boil, but the scent of lavender clings to Dinah. She always insists on boiling a pot of water with lavender when they all get together. Felicity understands. With this group, they can use all the calming energy they can get.

 

“Leave her alone, won’t you?” Dinah insists in her gentle almost-accent. Her voice commands authority and maybe that’s the magic or maybe that’s just who Dinah is. “We each use our powers in different ways.”

 

“Yeah, just because she doesn’t run around creating chaos with a black cat at her heels doesn’t mean she doesn’t use her magic,” Zari comments, laughing a little at Sara’s expense. She dusts her hands off, dropping the rose stems into the sink where Amaya is still cleaning dirt from beneath her nails.

 

Dinah smirks, giving Felicity a small wink before moving to help Donna bundle sprigs of lavender and sage together. They’ll each go home with a new stock of items from the garden to be kept in cabinets and used around their respective homes.

 

“Leave Gary out of this,” Sara pouts.

 

“Face it, babe,” Felicity grins, glad the conversation has turned away from her. “You’re a total cliche!”

 

Sara contemplates it for a moment, as though she may formulate some kind of argument, but shrugs instead. A wicked grin spreads across her face.

 

“Fair enough,” she concedes. “But at least I’m having fun. It’s not like I’m hurting anyone, just stirring the pot a little. No pun intended.”

 

“That pun was absolutely intended,” Amaya comments as she dries her hands next to the sink. Sara shoots her a dirty look, but doesn’t argue.

 

“Sara,” Dinah says, taking command of her daughters attention. She’s pulled a pot from near the window and brought it to the counter next to the stove where the lavender continues to boil. “I’d like you to run to the apothecary and get some pomegranate seeds before we leave next week. We’re going to bring your sister some white tea with pomegranate for good luck.”

 

“Can’t I just go to the grocery store downtown?” Sara asks, her attention back on the root in front of her. “It’s not like Laurel will know the difference.”

 

“ _ We’ll _ know,” Dinah insists. “And that’s what will make the difference.”

 

Sara sighs, but Felicity understands. If they were any other group of witches, the pomegranate from the grocery store would be fine. But Dinah and Donna insist on creating their own ingredients, brewing their own concoctions. It’s about the expectation of your own items. It’s too difficult to grow pomegranate here but Dinah will want the best for the tea. Pomegranate brings prosperity and Dinah insists on drinking white tea with pomegranate before every big event.

 

She figures a wedding more than qualifies.

 

Donna’s hands slide into her view, removing the mortar and pestle from her hands. The sandalwood within appropriately ground.

 

“I’ll take this,” Donna says, moving the pestle around in the stone bowl a bit to check the fineness of the wood. “Take the twine and bundle up the cinnamon. You’re each going to take a few bundles home with you.”

 

Felicity nods, moving to the window sill where the cinnamon bark has been laid out to dry out. It’s rolled into itself, already cut to the appropriate size by Dinah or her mother. She pulls a bundle of twine from one of the drawers beneath the counter and a pair of scissors from the knife block.

 

“Careful with that,” Zari comments, the teasing lilt to her voice taking on a nearly mean tone. “Wouldn’t want to accidentally end up casting yourself with a passion spell.”

 

Sara snickers behind her.

 

“Ha ha,” Felicity intones, angrily cutting a piece of twine.

 

“Speaking of,” Donna says leadingly.

 

“No one was,” Felicity interjects, but her mother is nothing if not persistent.

 

“I know you’ve been busy and all your usual excuses,” she continues with only a small air of disbelief in Felicity’s so-called excuses to her tone. “But have you met anyone lately?”

 

“Don’t you think you’d know if I had?” Felicity asks.

 

“Well, you hardly tell me everything, Felicity,” Donna argues, which… fair. “Honestly, if we didn’t do this every few weeks, I swear I’d know nothing about your life.”

 

“You know plenty about my life, mom. You just mean my  _ love _ life.”

 

“ _ Non-existent  _ love life,” Sara comments.

 

Felicity stops, setting the scissors down and turning to face the group. She thinks it is perhaps only the lavender boiling on the stove, overcoming the smell of all the other herbs and spices within the room, that keeps her from raising her voice.

 

“You all do know I’m trying to start a tech company, right?” She asks. “While also trying to keep the lights on by working a second job while I look for investors? I’m just checking because everyone seems to be under the impression I have all this time on my hands to be searching for suitors.”

 

“Dude, relax,” Sara says. “No one is suggesting suitors. But, seriously, when was the last time you got laid?”

 

“Sara, that’s enough,” Dinah sighs, coming to Felicity’s rescue once more. “Felicity, we’re all very proud of what you’ve been doing. We know that you’re busy.”

 

“Busy is busy,” Sara says. “But, there has to be some point for you to have some fun, too, right?”

 

“I have fun,” Felicity argues. “This is fun. My work on the startup is fun.”

 

Sara groans, but a sharp look from Dinah quiets her. Felicity turns back to the cinnamon sticks laid out on the windowsill and ignores the feeling the conversation has stirred in her. Sara and Zari and her mother, they consider the magic fun. And it’s not that Felicity doesn’t. It’s just that she’s learned the hard way what that fun can come at the cost of.

 

She ties another piece of twine around a bundle of cinnamon as the kitchen moves on from the conversation behind her. The conversation acts as a low buzz in her ears, there but not really. She feels herself stumbling around in her own head, no longer grounded to the floor beneath her feet.

 

An elbow connects gently with her own suddenly, causing her to cut the twine sideways. It’ll still tie fine, but it’ll fray slightly at one end now. She looks over to find Amaya offering her a gentle smile.

 

“I think you’re fun,” she says quietly and the scent of lavender returns to Felicity’s senses. She smiles gratefully, the gentle reassurance pulling her from her own head.

 

The sun has set by the time they all leave the old house, the moon shining brightly above them with the beginning of a new month. Donna bundles them each up and assortment of jars and small cloth bags with various items and Felicity presses a kiss to her mother’s cheek.

 

None of them notice the handful of fresh rose petals Sara takes with her.

 

\---

 

Fall is nearly non existent in Nevada and Felicity gets bitter about it sometimes. She misses the falls in Boston where the leaves turned orange and red and brown, the air took on a chill. The season may change from summer to winter so quickly here, fall can last a week. Blink and you miss it. All the fall clothing she’s stubbornly hung on to from college completely gone to waste.

 

It can be nice, though, when it’s the first week of October and she can sit in a tank top and a pair of jeans under the warm sun. Not sweltering in the dry air, but comfortable instead. Even the metal bleachers beneath her thighs are warm without burning to the touch.

 

“I still need a plus one for my sister’s wedding,” Sara comments, suddenly, from her seat next to Felicity. They’re leaned back in between two rows of bleachers, their knees bent up in front of them with the rounded edge of the bleacher behind them pressing against their spines. It’s not comfortable, but no other position would be either.

 

“Hard pass,” Felicity says, not even looking up from the laptop on her thighs. Sara flips her dark sunglasses up suddenly, pushing them up into her hair. The strands are a peachy pink today, a sudden change from when Felicity had seen her a few days ago, but Sara is prone to changing the color at the drop of a hat. Or a snap of her fingers, as it were.

 

“Who says I was asking?” She bites.

 

“Please, I know you,” Felicity says, dropping her own sunglasses down to hang beneath her chin as she squints at the computer screen in front of her.

 

“Line one-thirty-five,” Zari comments from her other side, barely glancing at the screen. Felicity pouts, finding the error in the code and fixing it. Between not having her glasses on and the glare from the sun, typos are so much easier to make when she can’t properly see the screen. “Why don’t you just invite that guy you’ve been seeing? The chainsmoker with the terrible fashion sense.”

 

“Constantine?” Sara laughs. “Yeah, he’d look great in the wedding photos. Besides, we’re not really  _ seeing _ each other. It’s way too casual for a wedding.”

 

“Is anyone even tracking my time?” Amaya shouts, pulling all of their attentions. She’s down on the track in front of the bleachers, leaning forwarding with her arms on the fence around the track. Felicity can’t really tell if she’s squinting against the sun or glaring at them, but her money is on the latter.

 

Zari holds her phone up in the air, waving it. It catches the sunlight and reflects it wildly with her movements.

 

“Seven twenty-eight,” she calls and Amaya throws her head back in annoyance. She turns and resets herself. Zari restarts the timer on her phone.

 

“She knows that’s, like, crazy good for a mile, right?” Felicity asks, watching Amaya take off again down the track.

 

“Please, have you met her?” Zari comments, setting her phone down on the bleacher next to her. Felicity shrugs, turning her attention back to the laptop in front of her.

 

“Tell me again why you won’t just come work with me,” she says, writing out another few lines of code. “I don’t say this lightly, but you might be the only person actually up to my standards.”

 

“Way too corporate,” Zari shrugs. Felicity isn’t sure how “corporate” a barely started up startup is, though. “I’m not selling my soul. No offense.”

 

She pouts, slouching a little lower in her seat. Felicity forgets sometimes how much Zari still sounds like college-Felicity. That’s when they’d met and it had made sense to her back then, the anti-establishment, anti-government, anti-pretty-much-everything schtick. A super genius with magic at her disposal? She could have ruled the world.

 

And Zari had pretty much felt the same way about herself.

 

Felicity had been forced to rethink everything she thought she knew. It had made her change a lot of her viewpoint. She still wanted to help the world, still wanted to use her brain to do it, but figured there had to be a better way.

 

“Selling your soul?” Sara laughs. “Remind me, what is it you currently do, again?”

 

“There’s nothing wrong with being a hacker for hire, sowing a little chaos here and there,” Zari shrugs, unashamed. “Speaking of chaos, I thought you and your sister could barely stand each other. Why are you even part of the wedding party?”

 

“Laurel’s a traditionalist,” Sara shrugs before dropping her sunglasses back over her eyes and letting out a loud groan. “Seriously, how am I going to get through this wedding alone?”

 

“Come on, you’re being a little dramatic,” Felicity sighs, giving up on being able to write the code properly out in the bright sun. She slaps her laptop shut and looks over at Sara. “Don’t you think it might be nice to go home for a little bit? When’s the last time you even visited Starling?”

 

Sara shrugs, contemplating the answer to the question. Felicity pats her knee consolingly.

 

“You’ll go, drink some free alcohol, meet a hot stranger, and probably create some magical mess that’ll piss your mom off for a few days,” she says. “It’ll be great.”

 

A smirk tugs at the corners of Sara’s mouth and Felicity knows she’s already dreaming up all the trouble she’ll cause. Starling City won’t know what hit it.

 

“It might be fun to see who’s still hanging around the old haunt,” she admits.

 

Felicity doesn’t envy whoever Sara finds.

 

\---

 

Sara and Dinah leave for Starling City by plane. Dinah had tried to suggest driving, but Sara insisted neither of their cars would make it there. Felicity’s pretty sure it’s really just because if Sara had to sit in the car with her mother and discuss her sister’s upcoming nuptials for the entirety of the drive from Nevada to Washington, one of them would never have made it there.

 

Donna had decided it was a good time to make the rest of them help purify the house. It hadn’t taken long, but the weather had turned hot again and, even with all the windows open, the scent of different herbs had become suffocating. She’d taken charge of mopping the floors and Gary, the stray cat that normally followed at Sara’s heels, with no one else to bother, had spent the whole time weaving around her and undoing her hard work.

 

Not to mention, the whole thing just reminded her that she needed to clean and purify her own house as well.

 

The break following the whole ordeal was much needed and she was glad when Amaya and Zari had invited her back to their apartment for a while. Amaya had dashed off quickly after they’d arrived and Felicity had lost track of her. Zari had stayed with her until it was time for her prayers.

 

Felicity had taken advantage of the all-beef hot dogs in their fridge.

 

“You know you’re gonna have to replace those, right?” Amaya comments, coming into the kitchen. Their apartment is nice and modern, situated up a few floors over a storefront in downtown. She’s changed into a pair of joggers and a loose t-shirt. “They’re Zari’s so…”

 

“Yeah, I know, I know,” Felicity says, hitting a button on the microwave. When she turns, Amaya has her nose wrinkled at the food now being blasted with radiation. “God, are you going running again?”

 

“I’m training for a  _ race _ , remember?” Amaya points out, lifting her arms over her head and stretching the muscles.

 

“Right,” Felicity nods. “And you’re doing that  _ why _ again?”

 

“It’s for charity,” Amaya sighs, clearly tired of the repetitive conversation. Ever since she had announced her decision to run in the city’s annual 10k, they’d each taken turns playfully jabbing at her over it.

 

“I think what she means,” Zari says, returning to the kitchen with her prayer rug folded carefully in her arms. She returns it to the shelf where she keeps it, just inside the doorway. “Is that the same effect can be garnered by simply  _ donating _ to charity. And yet you’ve made the decision to run six miles instead.”

 

The microwave beeps from behind Felicity and she turns to pull the hot dogs out. She lets the two roommates argue it out while she locates the buns and makes herself a plate.

 

“You all act like I’m making you run the 10k with me,” Amaya says, rolling her eyes at them as she bends at the waist, stretching her fingers out towards one of her feet. “It wouldn’t kill you to do some exercising every once in a while, you know. Especially with all the garbage you eat.”

 

She waves a hand towards the plate in Felicity’s hand as she stands up.

 

“Hey, these are kosher,” Felicity argues, with a mouthful.

 

“Are you eating my hot dogs?” Zari asks, glaring at the plate in Felicity’s hand now. Sheepishly, she holds it out for her and Zari plucks the other hot dog from it.

 

“That barely makes it any better,” Amaya says, but she’s laughing at them now, shaking her head as Zari takes a big bite of the hot dog. She passes them, heading for the entryway to the apartment, calling back at them, “You’re sending yourselves to an early grave!”

 

Felicity and Zari look at each other as the apartment door closes behind her.

 

“But what a way to go,” Zari says, her own mouth full.

 

“Mhm,” Felicity hums.

 

\---

 

After the wedding, Dinah insists they all come over for lemon cakes and look at photos from the weekend. Which is mostly a boring affair as none of them know anyone in the photos but Dinah and Sara, but Dinah has an affinity for citrus-based things and Felicity never says no to her lemon cakes.

 

They all know Laurel in an abstract way. Photos around the house or Sara’s stories. Felicity knows that she’s older by a few years and Sara thinks she’s a stick in the mud. When their parents split up, Sara moved to Nevada with Dinah and Laurel stayed in Washington with their dad. Apparently, she doesn’t use her magic at all anymore.

 

But the wedding seemed nice.

 

“Honestly, the most boring weekend of my life,” Sara says later, as they’re leaving Dinah and Donna’s house. They walk in two lines down the sidewalk, Sara turned around to address them as she walks backwards.

 

“In fairness, that’s not saying much when it comes to you,” Amaya teases. Sara scrunches her nose up and shrugs one shoulder as if to say ‘fair enough’.

 

“Whatever, the point is, almost nothing remotely interesting happened the entire time I was there,” she continues, a whine to her words. As if she’d wanted the whole affair to be a total meltdown. “And those photos mom showed weren’t even any of the fun stuff!”

 

“What was the fun stuff?” Zari asks, her interest piqued. Sara grins wickedly as if she’s just been  _ dying _ for someone to ask. Felicity lets out a quiet groan, sharing an apprehensive look with Amaya.

 

“First, short cut,” Sara direct, her hand closing around the metal fencepost next to her and uses the leverage of it to swing herself around it. Felicity lets out a louder groan this time, meant for Sara to hear. Sara cuts her a look. “Don’t be a spoilsport.”

 

“Don’t be a cliche,” Felicity teases. A dark look passes over Sara’s face and she turns away sharply, continuing into the graveyard behind her. Felicity frowns, glancing at the other women as she follows after Sara. 

 

She says quietly, “I was just joking.”

 

Zari and Amaya both offer her matching looks of confusion before hurrying to catch up to Sara. They’ve always teased Sara about being a witch stereotype and she’s never seemed to mind. Even as they walk through the graveyard, with quiet respect as they cut a path between headstones, Gary comes slipping out of the darkness to trail at Sara’s heels. The cat gives an eerie mewl and Sara stops under the weeping willow in the center of cemetery to scratch at his ears.

 

She straightens as the rest of them catch up to her, fishing her phone from her back pocket and swiping at the screen.

 

“Four witches walk into a cemetery,” Zari comments as Sara continues to search her phone. “I think I’ve heard this joke before.”

 

Amaya elbows her in the side. “Sara, what are we doing here?”

 

“God, it’s like why even give magic to people who can’t enjoy it?” Sara groans before holding her phone out to Amaya. Zari and Felicity crowd around her to see the screen, pulled up to a photo of Sara in her bridesmaid dress. It’s a selfie that she’d sent all of them.

 

Out of her peripheral vision, she sees Sara give a wave of her hand and the photo swipes to the side to reveal a different one.

 

“Wait, hang on,” Amaya says, turning the phone away from herself suddenly. “Is there anything in here we aren’t going to want to see?”

 

Catching her meaning, Felicity looks over at Sara in concern. She pinches her face, really considering the question, before shaking her head with a laugh.

 

“Relax, it’s all safe for work, I promise,” she assures them and Amaya turns the phone back. She swipes through the photos slowly and Felicity understands what Sara had meant about ‘fun stuff’. Chaos, debauchery. The things a professional wedding photographer, or mother of the bride, wouldn’t want immortalized.

 

It’s, admittedly, pretty hilarious. Felicity wonders how much of the small disasters – nothing major or that would really ruin the day for anyone – had been helped along by a point of Sara’s finger or a wave of her hand.

 

The photo changes and the bright lights and warm colors of the wedding have been replaced with a darkly lit space. Sara is still unmistakable in the photo, another selfie, even bathed in terrible green light. Pressed in behind her, as she gives face for the camera and he seems caught somewhere between attempting to mimic her and laugh at her, is a man with bright blue eyes. Felicity feels a spike of annoyance that they could both still look gorgeous washed in club lighting.

 

“Who’s this?” She asks, despite herself. When she looks over, Sara now has Gary curled up in her arms. “He’s cute.”

 

Sara raises an eyebrow in question and Amaya holds the phone out for her to see.

 

“Oh, that’s Oliver,” she answers. “Oliver Queen. He’s an old friend I bumped into while I was looking for somewhere to kill some time the night before the wedding.”

 

“He wasn’t in the wedding photos,” Zari points out as Amaya goes back to swiping through the photos. There are some shots of Sara and Laurel, not seeming to hate each other as much as Sara may pretend, at what looks like the rehearsal dinner, some of Sara and her father.

 

“Oh, no,” Sara laughs. “He was not invited. We hung out, got drunk. It was fine. He might be coming out here soon. He’s dealing with some shit.”

 

Maybe she’s just talking because she hasn’t mentioned Oliver to anyone else. From the way she’d said it, Felicity isn’t sure he’s a favorite of her sister’s, or maybe or mother’s. Still, Felicity lingers on the words, strangely interested in the story of this mysterious old friend she’s never heard of before.

 

“It seems like a perfectly lovely wedding to me,” Amaya says, diplomatically, locking the phone and handing it back to Sara. Felicity nods in agreement.

 

“Very traditional,” Zari comments, though from her it doesn’t really sound like a compliment. The comment makes Sara’s lips twitch with a vindictive smirk. Felicity sighs, shrugging her shoulders.

 

“I don’t really see myself getting married,” she says, leading them away from the tree and towards the exit on the other side of the graveyard. Sara was right. It is a shortcut towards Sara’s place, which is where they’ve all planned to spend some time hanging out.

 

“And,” she adds pointedly, throwing her hand up with one finger in the air before anyone else can comment, “before any of you smartasses say it, yes, I know you have to actually have a love life to get married. Which I do not.”

 

Sara hums from behind her and Gary gives a quiet chuff in response to the sound. “Well, I don’t know, Felicity. Maybe things are going to change for you soon.”

 

Felicity spins, now the one walking backwards. She keeps her senses up, searching out each headstone before she can walk into it or step over someone’s grave. She narrows her eyes at Sara, bringing up the rear of the group with Gary settled comfortably on her shoulder.

 

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

 

She merely shrugs.

 

“Just, you know, never say never, don’t count yourself out too soon, all that,” she says. “You never know what could happen.”

 

\---

 

The first day it rains in October, it rains like it will never stop. Which is strange for a state as dry as Nevada. Felicity knows the weather has been changing, but she isn’t sure there’s anything that could make it rain this much in the driest state in the country. It puts her on edge.

 

It rains the whole day, but the worst of it doesn’t start until she’s on her way home from a job. She temps in the IT departments at a few places around town. There aren’t a lot of huge companies out here, so they tend to lack their own experts. When technology goes on the fritz – usually because people don’t know how to use it properly – pretty much everyone in town knows to call Felicity.

 

She’s nearly to her house, a ways out from the city and relatively secluded, when she spots a car pulled off to the side of the road. The rain is pouring in buckets now and she’s worried the roads will flood due to a drainage system that isn’t equipped for this kind of an onslaught.

 

The car has its flashers on, otherwise she might have missed it entirely, and the hood is up. Felicity doesn’t know cars nearly as well as she knows computers, but she doubts they’re going to be able to fix whatever has broken in this rain. She pulls up next to it and stops.

 

At the hood of the car, a figure straightens. Felicity rolls her window down and waits as they person comes around to speak to her. He’s wearing a jacket, but it doesn’t have a hood and hardly seems to be doing anything to keep him dry. His hair is dripping wet as he leans down towards her window.

 

“Car trouble?” She asks, lamely.

 

“Yeah,” he nods, giving her a slight grimace. “Yeah, something like that. My phone isn’t working either.”

 

“There’s kind of a deadzone from the bend back there up to my property,” she explains, pointing ahead to where her house sits. She can see it from here, the yellow light of the porch lamp distorted in the downpour. She tilts her head towards the other side of her car. “Come on, hop in. You can call whoever you need to from my house.”

 

He seems to contemplate the offer for a moment before nodding. Felicity rolls up her window and unlocks the doors as he runs back to his own car, slams the hood, and dips inside the doors to turn it off. After a moment, he slides into her passenger seat.

 

“Thanks,” he says.

 

“Sure,” she nods, reaching to switch the car back into drive. She stops suddenly, looking up at him. “Oh my God, wait, you’re not like a murderer, right? Or like trying to scam me? I probably should have asked that first- although, why would you tell me if you were, right? I mean, that’s just-”

 

He cuts her off, eyes wide at her babbling. “I’m not gonna attack you.”

 

“Okay, good,” she nods. And then she holds her hand out. “I’m Felicity Smoak.”

 

“Nice to meet you,” he says, taking her hand and giving it a firm shake. His skin is wet from the rain, but its turned warm from the heat of him. “I’m Oliver. Oliver Queen.”

 

“Oh!” She says excitedly, pulling her hand back. “I know who you are!” 

 

He looks different from the photo, enough so that she hadn’t recognized him at first. But his hair is plastered to his head and he’s hunched from the cold. Now that she knows, though, she can see the familiar shape of his jaw, the bright blue of his eyes.

 

Off his look, she elaborates, “Sorry, you’re Sara’s friend, right? From Starling?”

 

“Yeah,” he nods, smiling now that he recognizes their shared connection. “Wow, when she said it was a small town…”

 

“You have no idea,” Felicity laughs. 

 

Finally, she switches the car back into drive and continues the rest of the way to her driveway. She doesn’t have a garage or a carport and the poorly tended herb garden sits between her driveway and the front door, so they have to make a mad dash for the porch steps through the rain. Her raincoat keeps her mostly dry, but her glasses fog up as they reach the heat of the house.

 

As Oliver steps inside, dripping onto her welcome mat and seeming wholly uncomfortable in this unfamiliar environment, Felicity subtly runs her fingers over the wick of the tall white candle next to the door. It catches flame under her skin at the same moment she flicks the switch to turn the hall light on.

 

Oliver shakes a little, but she can tell he’s trying to hide it. The heat of the day has quickly turned to an icy evening and the rain hasn’t helped matters. He’s drenched and shivering.

 

“You’re gonna get sick,” she comments. “Here, take your coat off and hang it up. I can start a fire.”

 

“No, I don’t want to track water all through your home,” he argues, but she waves her hand dismissively.

 

“Then take your shoes off, too,” she shrugs, already toeing out of her own boots and leaving them on the carpet by the door. She unzips her raincoat and hangs it up on the hooks, demonstrating for him, before she moves further into the house. After a moment, she hears him moving about behind her.

 

“Do you need to call for a tow or someone to pick you up?” She calls, turning into the kitchen where she still has a stone fireplace built into the outer wall.

 

“Honestly, I don’t know who to call out here,” he says. “I figured I’d just call Sara.”

 

Felicity cringes. She knows for a fact Sara and Zari have left the city for the day on a trip to celebrate the beginning of the autumnal lunar cycle. She and Amaya had begged off due to other commitments for the day, but judging by the snapchats Sara has been sending them, they’re still a ways out from coming home.

 

“It might be a while if you’re waiting for Sara,” she says as he joins her in the kitchen. She’s trying to get the fire started the old fashioned way, but the wood is damp in the hearth. She turns to find him standing in the doorway. Sure enough, he’s dripping water onto the wood floors and his arms crossed over his chest do nothing to hide his shivering.

 

“Maybe a tow truck, then,” he sighs and she can tell it’s the less favorable of the two options for him.

 

“You look like an icicle,” she comments, cold just from looking at him. “There’s pretty much only one towing place in town and it’s gonna take a bit for them to get out here. I’m afraid your gonna go hypothermic in my hallway and then I’ll have to explain how a strange man just happened to up and freeze in my house.”

 

He shoots her an odd look and she shrugs. “You’re a friend of Sara’s, which makes you a friend of mine. Why don’t you take a shower while I call for the tow?”

 

“Really, it’s fine,” he argues, shaking his head. “I can just call for the tow and wait in my car. I don’t want to put you out.”

 

“Oliver, if you die tonight, I’ll feel personally responsible,” she says, calmly. “And if I feel responsible, I’ll have to go through all the trouble of bringing you back from the dead and it’s really an inconvenient process, so I’d prefer if you just take advantage of my kindness and take the damn shower.”

 

He stares at her for a minute, confused by the comment, until she laughs and points towards the stairs at the other end of the hallway.

 

“Upstairs,” she directs. “Second door on the left. You can use whatever you like.”

 

He shakes his head, but she sees the grateful smile on his face nonetheless. “Thanks.”

 

Once he’s gone, she gives in and starts the fire magically. Which takes exactly no time and she swears sometimes she understands Sara’s point of view when it comes to magic. In the hallway, she adjusts the thermostat as she waits for someone to answer the phone at the auto shop downtown. She knows the owner lives above the shop with her husband and has helped out a few times with upgrading their computer systems. It’s after hours, but she figures she can call in a favor.

 

After she’s made arrangements for Oliver’s car, she heads upstairs herself. The material of her skirt is damp from the rain, not entirely protected by her raincoat, and she’s dying to get into something warmer. She stops outside the door to the bathroom, where the water hasn’t started running yet, and knocks gently. She doesn’t expect the door to swing nearly entirely open with Oliver shirtless on the other side.

 

“Oh, sorry!” She says, startling at the state of him. “I was just gonna say, um, if you want to leave your clothes outside the door, I can throw them in the drier so they’ll be, well, dry… obviously.”

 

She swears if she weren’t so in control of her powers, the floor would have opened up and swallowed her by now. You’d think she’d never seen a shirtless dude before. Oliver either doesn’t notice her flustered state or, more likely, is nice enough not to comment and cause further embarrassment for them both.

 

“Okay,” he nods. “Thanks.”

 

She gives a jerky nod and rushes past the still open door down the hall to her own bedroom, pushing the door shut behind her and resisting the urge to go invisible for a little while. That wouldn’t be suspicious at all.

 

“Oh, don’t worry, that’s just the house ghost,” she comments glibly to herself, shaking her head at her own ridiculousness. 

 

Forcing herself to move on from her own embarrassing conduct – really has it been  _ that _ long since she’d had a half naked man in her house? (Short answer, yes.) – she searches for a pair of fuzzy pajama pants and the thick wool socks she keeps in the top drawer on her dresser for occasions exactly like this. Well, not  _ exactly _ like this, but ones where the weather takes an icy turn and she longs to be warm and cozy.

 

It reminds her of Boston, sometimes. She’ll probably never see snow here, but the cold nights and the fire burning downstairs bring her a comfort when she finds herself missing the east coast.

 

As she’s heading back downstairs, she finds Oliver’s wet clothes folded neatly outside the bathroom door. The old pipes creak as hot water rushes through them. She can track the movement as she moves through the house, back downstairs. It’s complemented by the sound of the rain outside. She tosses the clothes into the dryer in the laundry room and sets it just long enough for Oliver to finish his shower and the clothes to be warm and dry before she returns to the kitchen.

 

She’s boiling together ingredients for hot cocoa when the dryer buzzes and, at nearly the same time, she hears the pipes give a screech as the water shuts off upstairs. Folding the clothes as she walks, she places them back outside of the bathroom door and returns downstairs.

 

“That smells good,” Oliver comments from behind her and she turns to find him standing in the doorway to the kitchen once again. Normally, the wooden floors in her house creak with movement, but he’s found a way to navigate them silently without even trying.

 

“Hot cocoa,” she explains, turning the fire off and pouring the chocolatey beverage into a porcelain teapot Dinah gave her as a Hanukkah present years ago. “It’s basically the only thing I can cook.”

 

“You were right,” he comments as she pulls two tin mugs down from the hooks above the counter. The way he says it gives her the impression it’s not a phrase he gives out easily. “The shower was a good idea.”

 

She nods, filling the mugs up nearly to the brim. “And the clothes? Dry enough?”

 

“Left in the same spot I’d left them, too,” he chuckles. “It seemed like magic.”

 

Felicity laughs as she brings the mugs to the round wooden table in the middle of the kitchen. She sets one down at the seat nearest him and takes the chair across. The move encourages him into the room and he takes the offered seat and beverage.

 

“I assure you, nothing magical about it,” she says easily. “Just a really high efficiency dryer.”

 

Oliver nods, his hands are wrapped around the hot mug but he doesn’t drink from it yet. Instead, he looks around her kitchen, tilting his head up to take in the brick wall on one side with the fire burning away.

 

“This house seems pretty old,” he says, but it sounds like a compliment. She wonders what he’s used to, knows her house is strange for a moderately well-off single twenty-something. “How’d you come by it?”

 

“It was my mom’s,” she explains, glancing around the room. “Well, her mom’s first, I guess. After my parents split up, we moved in here. When I left for college, my mom said it was too big for just her but it wasn’t really sellable at the time. So, she moved in with Sara’s mom and just kind of kept the place. When I moved back after I graduated, it just seemed natural to come back here, I guess. It felt right.”

 

“It’s nice,” he comments.

 

She doesn’t know what to say to that, so she elects for silence. The house goes quiet, save for the crackling of the fire and the rain outside. Every few minutes, the windchimes outside her front door catch a heavy wind coming through the porch and give a small racket. The chimes are old and rusting, hung by her grandmother who had always made the effort to switch them out when they began to look dingy.

 

Felicity keeps them to dispel negative energy and remember her grandmother, who had passed the year she’d left for college in Boston, but she hasn’t changed them for a new set of chimes since she’d moved back.

 

A buzzing sound makes her reach for her phone, expecting a phone call from the auto shop owner. Instead, Oliver fishes his own phone out of his pocket and stares at the screen for a moment.

 

“I texted Sara to let her know I was here,” he explains, noticing Felicity’s curious gaze. “She says she’ll be back in the city in about twenty minutes.”

 

Felicity nods. The weather must have cut their trip short. Her own phone buzzes then, in a show of incredible timing, and she flips it over on the table to see the incoming call. The number is local and when she answers she can hear the sound of a rumbling car, the familiar static of being projected over someone’s speaker system. She’d helped set that bluetooth system up.

 

Two minutes out. Felicity hangs up and relays the information to Oliver who hurries to finish his hot cocoa. A small part of her registers disappointment at his departure.

 

“I’ll just ask Sara to meet me at the shop,” he says. “I don’t want to inconvienence you any more than I already have.”

 

Felicity waves a hand dismissively, frowning when the mugs still hanging from their hooks rattle on the other side of the kitchen. It’s been a while since her nerves have affected her magic this much.

 

“It’s nothing,” she assures him anyway. “Like I said, any friend of Sara’s.”

 

Oliver nods. Outside the window onto the driveway, Felicity sees headlights move along the path. Two minutes may have been a conservative estimate. Oliver notices as well, standing from his seat. He makes a point to finish the last of the hot cocoa in his mug as he stands and she smiles to herself at the gesture.

 

“You know, Sara mentioned you, too,” he says suddenly as they’re standing at her front door. Felicity frowns, unsure what she could expect for Sara to be telling people about her. He must sense her panic because he laughs and it’s beautiful. She can tell he’s teasing her when he leans in and says, “Don’t worry, I know better than to believe a word out of her mouth.”

 

Felicity shoves his arm gently, pushing him towards the door and he winks at her as he pulls it open.

 

“You know, I hope you do catch a cold,” she says, only half-serious. 

 

Oliver stops on her porch and holds his hand out to her again, a gesture mimicking the one she’d offered him in the car earlier. Felicity takes his hand, warm despite the cold around him, skin rougher than she had expected. Not unwelcome.

 

“It was nice to meet you, Felicity,” he says and she’s surprised by the genuineness in his gaze. She nods.

 

“You too, Oliver,” she says.

 

At the driveway, the woman in the tow truck lays on the horn and Felicity is grateful for the distance between her and the closest neighbors. She drops Oliver’s hand and steps back enough to give herself space to close the door.

 

“I’ll see you around,” she says, one hand on the door as she eases it closed. Oliver says something in response, muffled by the door and taken away with the wind rushing past him.

 

But she’d swear it sounded like, “I hope so.”


	2. Chapter 2

**II.**

 

“And you just let him take a shower?” Amaya asks, her eyes wide with surprise. Felicity rolls her eyes, focusing on carefully painting color over her nails.

 

“He looked like a wet dog,” she says. “A  _ sad _ wet dog!”

 

“More like a hot, beefy wet dog,” Zari laughs. She has her phone out in front of her on the table. Within seconds of hearing about Felicity’s encounter, she had managed to find all of Oliver’s social media and — when found it all to be private — had found his younger sister’s instead. It had taken some scrolling, but she’s managed to find a nice photo of Oliver for them to fixate on.

 

She does wish they’d lower their voices. They’re the only ones at the outdoor tables at this cafe, but she knows how things go in this town. One person walking by sees them, decides to eavesdrop and hears something completely out of context. Next thing she knows, their conversation is the biggest gossip of the week.

 

“Okay, beside the point,” Felicity argues. “And also? Gross, weird. Please don’t ever say that again.”

 

Zari pulls a face and nods at the strangeness of her own turn of phrase.

 

“He could have been a serial killer,” Amaya goes on, always the practical one of the group.

 

“I  _ asked _ ,” Felicity pouts defensively. “He told me his name and I realized he was a friend of Sara’s.”

 

She doesn’t mention that she’d waited until after he was already in her passenger seat to ask.

 

“Yeah, but with friends of Sara that’s still only like a seventy percent chance of them being a good person,” Zari quips. Felicity sits up, pointing her finger around the table at the other two women.

 

“Hey,  _ we’re _ friends of Sara, remember?” She says. “Besides, he was perfectly nice.”

 

“You spent like - what? - thirty minutes with the guy in total?” Zari asks. “It’s not like that enough for a glowing character recommendation.”

 

“Whatever,” Felicity grumbles. “It was fine.”

 

The words disappear as a loud rumble fills the street. Startled by the noise, the three turn to find the source of the noise. A sporty black motorcycle comes down the street, the sound of the engine bouncing between brick storefronts. It pulls into one of the spots a little ways down from the cafe where they’re sitting and Felicity realizes there are two riders.

 

One of whom has very distinctive peachy pink hair sticking out from underneath her helmet. She should have known.

 

Sara hops gracefully off the motorcycle and removes her helmet. She spots them and hops up onto the curb in front of the bike, preparing to join them before she stops to look back at her companion, still on the bike. She waves her hand, inviting them to join. They relent, sliding off the bike and removing their own helmet.

 

“Oh,” Zari says, none too subtly holding her phone up for comparison. “I guess that’s Oliver.”

 

Felicity bats at her arm to make her drop it before he notices, focused on making sure his and Sara’s helmets are secured to the bike seat.

 

“Okay,” Amaya says. “I’d have let him get in my car, too.”

 

Seriously. She’s seriously considering putting a silencing spell on her friends right now.

 

“Hey guys,” Sara greets, practically bouncing up to the table. Felicity doesn’t like her overly jovial attitude. It usually means she’s up to something. She waves her hand towards Oliver as he joins her. “You guys remember my friend Oliver I told you about, right?”

 

Zari and Amaya nod politely. Felicity focuses in on twisting the nail polish cap back into the bottle.

 

“Great!” Sara says. “Oliver this Amaya, Zari, and,” she points to each of them in turn before stopping at Felicity. “Well, you’ve met Felicity.”

 

“Good to see you again,” he greets, before looking to her friends. “And to meet you all. You’re pretty much all Sara talks about.”

 

“We’ve heard a lot about you, too,” Zari smirks. Felicity gives a small flick of her index finger and, across the table, Zari flinches before shooting her a look.

 

“She just means Sara’s told us a lot about you, as well,” Amaya covers.

 

“Only the best things,” Sara assures him, dropping into the chair between Amaya and Zari.

 

Felicity looks around, fixated on the motorcycle parked between the line of cars running down the street. She doesn’t think she’s ever seen a single person drive a motorcycle in this town. Something tells her she won’t have to worry about unintentionally ending up the talk of the town this week.

 

“Car still in the shop?” She asks, because she can’t help herself and the words are out before she really intends to say them.

 

“Sort of,” Oliver admits, shoving his hands in the pockets of his leather jacket. “Apparently, the car I bought was a lemon.”

 

“Ollie’s never had to go car shopping on his own before,” Sara pouts playfully at him, but Felicity swears she sees him tense up at the nickname. “The bike is slick, though, right? He brought it from Washington out here.”

 

“How long are you planning on staying, Oliver?” Amaya asks.

 

“Not sure,” he shrugs. “I guess it depends.”

 

“On what?” Felicity asks, her tongue getting the best of her again. Oliver’s gaze cuts to hers and she realizes they’d both been avoiding each other’s eye until now. He blinks once, considering the question.

 

“On what I find out here,” he says finally and she bites down on her cheek so hard she swears she tastes blood.

 

Sara invites him to stay and hang out with them, but Oliver refuses. He comes up with an excuse, but Felicity thinks the group of them may be overwhelming him. She can’t blame him. He heads away from them, assuring them he’ll spend more time next time, and Felicity returns her attention to her nails.

 

“So,” she starts, trying for casual and knowing immediately she’s going to fail. “You and Oliver?”

 

It’s practically nothing, but Sara knows her well enough – and vice versa – that she understands immediately.

 

“God no,” she laughs, a little more than necessary in Felicity’s opinion. Then she elbows Felicity, nearly causing her to topple the bottle of nail polish. “Don’t worry, babe, he’s all yours.”

 

Felicity shoots her a glare, but at the sound of the motorcycle starting up again behind her, she can’t resist a final look. He has his helmet on again, Sara’s strapped securely to the seat behind him, but he must sense her gaze. He freezes and then his hand comes up in a wave. Felicity returns it.

 

“I don’t understand why you waste precious time on this,” Sara comments, pulling her back to the table as Oliver backs slowly out of the parking space. She’s holding up the bottle of nail polish now and Felicity snatches it back from her. “You can literally change your nail color at the snap of your fingers.”

 

To demonstrate, she sticks her hand up in front of Felicity’s face and snaps her fingers repeatedly. With each snap, the polish on her nails changes colors – fuschia, mauve, mint green, black – before Felicity bats her hand away.

 

“Don’t test me, Sara,” she says, pulling the brush back out of the polish and pointing it menacingly – or she hopes it’s menacingly – at Sara. “I’ll hex you so purple you won’t remember what your natural skin tone is.”

 

Returning her attention to adding another coat to her nails, she hears a scoff at her side, but Sara doesn’t press her any further. The conversation turns to Amaya’s training and Felicity finishes painting her nails.

 

She swears she can still hear the rumbling of Oliver’s bike.

 

\---

 

“Explain to me once again why we’re celebrating Halloween like a bunch of drunk co-eds this year,” Felicity says aloud to the store as a whole. She would worry about annoying other customers if there were, currently, any other customers inside the small consignment shop except for their little group. The usual suspects, if you will.

 

“Because we can,” Sara says from the aisle in front of Felicity.

 

“Can’t argue with that logic,” Zari calls sarcastically from the other end of the shop. Felicity presses up on her tiptoes in search of her over the racks of mismatched clothing and hastily tossed accessories. She spots her in the corner with Amaya, trying on some truly horrific hats.

 

Felicity sighs, realizing she’s the only one actually complaining about this whole thing. And it’s not that she doesn’t  _ want _ to celebrate Halloween, exactly. It’s just that, usually, they do it differently. The four of them, plus Dinah and Donna, and a bonfire to celebrate Samhain. Nothing flashy unless Sara decides to wear something with glitter or sequins.

 

Something about Oliver being in town has made Sara decide to try for something new. Or maybe it’s something old for her. Whatever. Felicity can be a good sport.

 

“And who’s ‘we’?” Dinah asks. Sara is a grown adult, but she asks it like she might forbade them from going if she doesn’t agree with their choice of company. Felicity almost hopes she will.

 

“The four of us,” Sara says, indicating the four women perusing Dinah’s consignment shop. “And Oliver. And our friend Tommy is coming out for a few days.”

 

Dinah gives a little tut as she straightens up some abandoned scarves left out of order on one of the racks. Felicity takes note of Sara’s language. Old friends have suddenly been given present tense again. It makes her nervous for Sara, but maybe that’s just her own disinterest in revisiting the past.

 

“Be smart, Sara,” Dinah cautions.

 

Felicity frowns, glancing across the store again. It’s Zari who meets her gaze, a matching look of confusion on her face as she affixes an old ship captain’s hat atop Amaya’s head.

 

“Please, mom,” Sara says, waving her off as she flips through a rack of leather jackets. “That was all ages ago.”

 

Dinah gives a sigh, but doesn’t press it any further. She disappears into the backroom with an armful of dresses. Felicity continues through the rack, stopping on a white faux fur jacket with icy blue trim. She frowns at it, considering it for a moment before pulling it off the hanger and trying it on.

 

“Okay, are you not planning on explaining that?”

 

Felicity is surprised when it’s Amaya who joins her and Sara on their side of the store, the pirate hat still on her head. Her curls fall from underneath it in ringlets and it’s almost shockingly flattering on her.

 

“Mom’s just a little wary about Oliver hanging around,” Sara shrugs. “He and my sister used to date.”

 

“ _ Oh _ ,” Zari says, joining them with a purple beret on her head. If Felicity didn’t know how much time Dinah spends making sure every item in the store is properly cleaned and free of anything gross, she’d be worried about them. “That explains it. Everything make sense now.”

 

Sara freezes, straightening up to turn to them with her arms crossed. “What does that mean?”

 

Felicity shoots Zari a look, shaking her head from behind Sara and trying to stave off the argument that’s sure to occur.

 

“It just explains Oliver, you meeting up with him, inviting him to stay at your house,” Zari shrugs, ignoring Felicity. “It’s about pissing your sister off.”

 

“You know what, Zari?” Sara snaps, leaning forward a little bit towards her. “You don’t know anything about it.”

 

“I know you moved almost eight hundred miles away from your sister but still act like you’re in competition with her over everything,” Zari says, crossing her own arms over her chest. “Look around, Sara. No one here is comparing you to Laurel but yourself.”

 

“Okay,” Felicity says, stepping in between them. “Let’s just relax, alright? We’re supposed to be having fun, remember?”

 

“Yeah,” Amaya nods. “Finding halloween costumes! Trying on ridiculous things! Here.”

 

She plops a pointy black hat on Sara’s head. Her stance is defensive still and the hat sits lopsided on her head, her braided hair hanging out from beneath it. It’s back to her natural blonde now, but Felicity doubts that will remain the case for long.

 

“You’re a witch,” Amaya says, laughing a little as she attempts to lighten the mood.

 

Sara reaches up, snatching the hat off of her head and dropping it unceremoniously to the floor. “I don’t want to be a witch for Halloween. In fact, I’m going to find a costume for myself,  _ by myself _ .”

 

With that, she pushes past Zari who angles a glare at the back of her head. The door to the shop swings open before she even reaches it, the bells hanging from it clanging noisily against the glass with her anger.

 

“We’re meeting by the cafe,” she says, her voice hard and cold as she relays the information. “Just don’t be late.”

 

“Whatever,” Zari grumbles as the door swings shut behind Sara. She stalks back over to the other side of the store, angrily pushing dresses along a rack.

 

Zari and Sara are prone to butting heads. They’re spats have been explosive in the past, but it’s been a while since one of them actually stormed off without letting Felicity or Amaya defuse the situation. It seems like something has shifted in their lives, but none of them can tell what it is.

 

Felicity and Amaya share an uneasy look, before returning to their own costume searches. The store takes on an uncomfortable silence.

 

\---

 

“‘Don’t be late’,” Zari says sarcastically, mimicking Sara’s words from the days prior. Felicity shifts her feet and rolls her eyes. “Like  _ we’re _ the flaky ones.”

 

“Sara’s not flaky,” Felicity defends. “She’s just a free spirit.”

 

“That’s just a nice way of saying flaky,” Zari says, crossing her arms over her chest.

 

Amaya stomps her feet a little against the sidewalk and Felicity isn’t sure if it’s out of annoyance or an attempt to stimulate blood flow to her legs. The tense air between Sara and Zari hasn’t eased, but it hasn’t been as bad. Mostly because Felicity is pretty sure Sara has been avoiding all of them. She’d sent out a group text reminding them of the plan for the evening, but otherwise they haven’t seen each other.

 

Felicity wonders if that means she’s been spending all of her time catching up with her old-turned-new-again friends. And what that means for the rest of them.

 

Which isn’t to say that she isn’t happy Sara’s been able to positively reconnect with some part of her past. It’s just that, at this point, it’s been the four of them for so long… she’s not sure how Sara’s new-old and old-new can blend together without someone getting lost in it all.

 

She glances nervously over at Zari. The annoyance is practically radiating off of her and Felicity can’t be certain she won’t end up zapping someone tonight. Felicity and Sara have known each other the longest, Sara having moved to Nevada a few years before Felicity left for college. And Amaya moved to town with her grandmother the year Felicity moved to Boston.

 

Zari, Felicity met in college and they’d become friends. Once they both realized the other had magic, though, they became inseparable. When Felicity had brought her home to Nevada a few times during breaks, everyone else had seemed to love her, too.

 

It’s just that Zari and Sara have similar personality types and, while neither of them will admit that, it causes them to but heads. A lot.

 

A cool breeze sweeps down the street and Felicity tugs the faux fur jacket she’d picked up at Dinah’s consignment shop tighter around herself. Zari lets out an annoyed groan.

 

“Five more minutes and I’m ordering us a car with or without them,” she says, spinning away from Amaya and Felicity in a huff.

 

The plan is for them all to meet here and order a car to take them to the closest big city. Usually, they’d just ask Zari to drive, since she won’t be drinking. Tonight, though, they’d decided the drive was too much to expect from her car. If they don’t leave soon, there may not be any cars left in the area.

 

“I don’t know what she’s complaining about,” Amaya says quietly. “At least she isn’t wearing a cotton shirt.”

 

Amaya pouts down at the thin, puffy blouse she’d picked out for her pirate costume and Felicity shoots her a sympathetic look. At least the long leather jacket she’d chosen to accompany it must be keeping some warmth in, but standing in the middle of downtown just waiting for Sara and whoever she has tagging along is starting to grate on all of their nerves.

 

“Okay, fuck it,” Zari snaps after what has definitely not been five minutes. She pulls her phone from her pocket just as a small group turns the corner.

 

“Relax, Zari,” Felicity sighs. “I think that’s them.”

 

It is, indeed, them. Or at least, Felicity knows its Sara and Oliver. She doesn’t recognize the third in their group, a man a little shorter than Oliver with dark hair in a leather jacket. Sara is clearly leading the other two as she moves towards them. She’s wearing head to toe black and high heeled boots. Her hair is slicked back into a glossy ponytail high on the back of her head and her makeup is dark and smokey.

 

“Glad you all could finally make it,” Zari gripes as they join them. She barely looks up from her phone, though, and Felicity figures she is actually ordering a car to take them into the city about twenty minutes up the interstate. “Nice of you to show just before we’d all turned to icicles.”

 

“Sorry, ladies,” the new guy says, charm dripping from him as he slides past Oliver to address the group. “That’s my fault. Just couldn’t quite get the hair right.”

 

Amaya is studying him with her head tilted to the side before she finally asks, “James Dean?”

 

The man snaps his fingers and points at her, though he turns to give Oliver a grin.

 

“Told you people would recognize it,” he says, to which Oliver shakes his head and doesn’t respond.

 

“This is my friend Tommy,” he says, instead, addressing the rest of them. “Tommy, this is Amaya, Zari, and Felicity.”

 

“What are you even supposed to be?” Zari asks, ignoring the introduction to point her irritation towards Sara. Honestly, Felicity would smack her if she thought it would do any good. Tommy and Oliver exchange a startled look.

 

“Hot,” Sara says, like it should be obvious. Maybe it should. Felicity learned a long time ago not to try to understand her, especially when she’s in a mood like the one Zari has clearly helped put her in. “And you’re - what? - angry girl number two?”

 

On the upside, if one of them actually punches the other maybe a real life brawl will make them knock this shit off. Felicity might even take bets.

 

“I’m a witch,” Zari says, smirking, and Felicity hears Amaya let out a sharp breath. Neither of them had thought to ask what her costume was. She’s just dressed in her normal clothes, so they’d assumed she wasn’t dressing up. It wasn’t really a surprise for Zari.

 

Sara’s face goes stony.

 

“Don’t you need like a pointy hat and broom or something to be a witch?” Tommy asks, either not recognizing the tense atmosphere or deciding to ignore it. He asks the question with levity and she wonders if that’s it. Diffusing through humor. Somehow she doubts that’ll work here.

 

“No, witches just look like normal people,” Zari shrugs.

 

“Spooky,” Tommy says, chuckling.

 

“I thought we agreed no one was going to be a witch tonight,” Sara says, ignoring Tommy. And she says ‘witch’ but Felicity thinks she means something else.

 

“You said  _ you _ didn’t want to be a witch,” Zari points out, fairly. “So I am.”

 

“Amaya’s a pirate,” Felicity says suddenly, because if she didn’t say something soon she might have exploded. Which probably would have taken a few storefronts with her. She ignores the strange looks the outburst garners. “Doesn’t she look great?”

 

Sara laughs, nodding in agreement as Amaya does a little bow, her leather coat sweeping out behind her with the gesture.

 

“And what are you?” She asks, tilting her head at Felicity. “Something nerdy, I assume.”

 

“First of all, rude,” Felicity pouts, looking down at her own costume. The mukluk boots and jacket are going to keep her warm in the cold night and the jeans are comfortable. So, even if Sara’s  _ is _ right, at least she’s  _ warm _ . “I’m Mei. From the game Overwatch.”

 

“So,” Sara says dragging the word out teasingly. “Rude, but accurate, right?”

 

Felicity sighs. “Whatever.”

 

“Could be worse,” Sara responds jovially, all traces of her bad attitude suddenly gone. “Oliver is Peter Pan!”

 

“Robin Hood,” he corrects, shooting Sara a tired look. Felicity presses her blue painted nails to her mouth to hide her smile, but she thinks he can see it anyway because he pouts at her. “It’s supposed to be Robin Hood. Bow, quiver. Robin Hood.”

 

“Sure, buddy,” Tommy says consolingly, patting Oliver’s shoulder.

 

Zari holds her phone up suddenly, waving it around a bit. “Car’s picking us up at the corner and it’s less than five minutes out. Which means move or I’m going to personally leave you behind.”

 

She barely finishes speaking before she’s turning and heading down the sidewalk away from them. Amaya turns and follows after her, catching up to link her arm through Zari’s.

 

“I like her,” Tommy chuckles which earns an eyeroll and a shove from Sara before they follow as well. Felicity moves to follow and Oliver falls into step next to her.

 

“Hey,” he says quietly and she hates that the soft way he says it, just for her, makes her smile.

 

“Hey,” she says back. He’s quiet for a moment but she can feel some kind of nervous energy coming off of him.

 

Finally, he asks, “Do I really look like Peter Pan?”

 

“I think it’s the hat,” she says gently and he groans. She tries not to laugh, she really does, but the chuckles overwhelm her anyway. He’s giving her a dark look and it’s only worsened by that ridiculous feathered hat on his head.

 

“Sara bullied me into dressing up,” he complains. “I didn’t know she and Tommy were gonna phone it in so much.”

 

Felicity chews on her lip, studying him in his costume for a minute. She stops, putting her hand on his forearm to stall him as well, as an idea forms in her mind.

 

“I think we can fix this,” she says before turning to call to the group ahead of them. “Hey! Oliver and I will catch up with you guys!”

 

“The car is two minutes away, Felicity,” Zari calls back.

 

“We’ll just get another one,” Felicity says. “Just text me where you end up and we’ll meet you there.”

 

“Uh, what’s happening?” Oliver asks, looking a little startled as she pulls at his arm, urging him back down the street from the way they came.

 

“I have an idea to make you a little less Disney and a little more HBO,” she explains and then flinches, squeezing her eyes shut. “That, um, may have sounded suggestive, but I swear I didn’t mean it that way. I just meant- you know, there was that HBO show about–”

 

“Robin Hood,” Oliver chuckles, cutting her off. “Yeah, I got it.”

 

“Great,” she says and then turns back to the group to shout, “We’ll see you there!”

 

Sara calls back, “Don’t blow us off, Overwatch!”

 

To which, Felicity rolls her eyes and grumbles, “That’s not my name.”

 

\---

 

She leads him the two blocks over to where Dinah’s shop sits facing the street. The lights are off, like most of the shops and storefronts that line the street at this time of night. It makes the street seem eerie and abandoned, but Felicity doesn’t dwell on it. She pulls her keys from the pocket of her jacket and finds the spare key Dinah had given her.

 

“What are we doing, exactly?” Oliver asks, peering into the dark windows. “And why do you have a key for this store? I thought you were in IT.”

 

“Sara’s mom owns it,” she says, deciding not to ask how he knows where she works. The thought leads her to the realization that either Sara had mentioned it or Oliver had asked about her. “I help out sometimes, so she gave me a key.”

 

“And she won’t mind that we’re here?” He ask as she pushes the door open. The bells at the top ring and she ushers him inside. 

 

“No, because we’re just going to borrow some things and then put them back tomorrow,” she explains. “Sara does it all the time.”

 

She doesn’t bother turning all the lights in the store on, but Dinah has a couple lamps set up for display purposes that are plugged into the wall. Felicity turns those on and begins searching the store. She finds the hooded olive green army jacket she’d seen the other day and tosses it at Oliver.

 

“Take the vest off and put that on,” she says, moving away from him to search through the accessories on the other side of the store. She can see him following her instructions, pulling off the brown vest on his costume.

 

“You’re pushier than I expected,” he calls.

 

“Do you want my help or not?” She asks, examining the masks on display in front of an old mirror. None of them are exactly what she’s looking for, but there’s one that close. She reaches for it, checking to make sure Oliver isn’t paying attention to her.

 

She taps the material of the mask and the black color turns to a dark green. She grins down at the change, the mask nearly exactly what she’d been imagining in her head. When she returns to him, Oliver has pulled on the army jacket and strapped the fake quiver over it.

 

“Here,” she says, stepping up to him. He ducks his head, letting her ease the mask over his face until it sits right. She adjusts it over his eyes, making sure he can see out of it.

 

“You changed your hair,” he comments suddenly, startling her.

 

“Oh,” she says, remembering that she’d magically changed her hair that evening. She’d gone with a chocolatey brown to replicate the character she was dressing as and pulled it up into a bun at the top of her head. “Yeah, it’s just temporary, though. Like, really temporary. It’ll probably be gone by tomorrow.”

 

He just nods at that and she feels suddenly like he’s analyzing her with his gaze. She shifts uncomfortably and focuses on getting the mask to sit right on his face.

 

“How do I look?” He asks as she steps back, taking in her handiwork.

 

“Like a hero,” she says, tilting her head to the side. He gives her a quizzical little smile and she explains, “I just mean you look like you could have stepped out of a comic book.”

 

He hums a little in consideration, snagging the plastic bow from the shelf where he’d set it up and stepping up to a mirror. She follows after him, watching as he pulls the hood up over his head, the feathered hat abandoned somewhere in the shop.

 

“Well if I’m a superhero, I need a name,” he says, considering his new look. “The Emerald Archer?”

 

Felicity scrunches her nose, shaking her head at the name. “What about… the Green Arrow?”

 

He frowns, considering it and she can feel his eyes on her in the mirror. She holds still this time, waiting him out as he considers her. Finally, he nods.

 

“Yeah, I like it,” he says, a brilliant smile coming over his features suddenly. Her chest tightens at the sight of it, taken by how beautifully he wears the expression. “Green Arrow and Overwatch. It sounds like a pretty good team.”

 

She grins back at him, nodding in agreement. She doesn’t even bother to correct him on the name.

 

\---

 

They make it to the first bar not long after the rest of the group. It, miraculously, hadn’t taken them long to find another car and Sara already has drinks waiting for them. Felicity makes a mental note to keep track of the amount of drinks Sara puts in front of her tonight. Zari keeps track of them as she orders soda for herself, and they let her decide when she’s tired of each place and decides it’s time to move on.

 

Felicity watches her and Tommy banter and makes sure she seems to be having a good time. Oliver sticks to her side or Sara’s, but he seems to be making the effort to get to know each of them at least a bit. Felicity can’t help but preen when it becomes clear his interest is far more in talking to her than anyone else, especially once the alcohol starts to set in.

 

At the second place, Sara pulls Felicity away from Oliver to take advantage of the club-like atmosphere and dance to the music. After the DJ plays Monster Mash for the third time, Felicity can see Zari losing her patience at the bar and suggests they all move on.

 

Out on the sidewalk, Amaya makes them all halt for a moment as she checks her phone.

 

“Nate’s here, too,” she explains and Zari groans while Sara lets out an over the top coo and Felicity laughs.

 

“ _ What _ a coincidence that he would just happen to show up,” Felicity teases and Amaya swats her hand away when she goes to poke her in the side.

 

“Whatever,” Amaya grumbles. “Shut up. He’s here with friends, too.”

 

“Well then tell him to meet us and let’s go,” Sara says. “It’s freezing.”

 

“Um, excuse me,” Tommy says, speaking up. Felicity is growing accustomed to his voice, mostly because she doesn’t think he’s shut up all night. She’s surprised Zari seems to be enjoying his company, especially considering he’s probably the drunkest of all of them. “Who is this person, exactly?”

 

“Amaya’s wannabe beau,” Sara explains, earning a shove from Amaya.

 

“Will you just walk, please?” She says, shoving her a little harder and Sara stumbles on her heels. She shoots Amaya a dark look, but does as she’s told. “They’re going to meet us in a bit.”

 

Tommy drops to the back of the group where Oliver and Felicity are bringing up the rear as they continue down the sidewalk. Zari looks at each place they pass, assessing it, before she’ll pick a place for them. Felicity figures it’s only fair, considering she’s basically babysitting them all night.

 

“Okay, Overwatch, spill,” Tommy says and she’s given up on correcting people about who she’s dressed as at this point. Plus, she kind of thinks Tommy’s already forgotten her name. “Who is this guy?”

 

“He works at the library back home,” Felicity explains. “He and Amaya are basically obsessed with each other, but neither of them will just pony up and do something about it.”

 

Tommy hums, nodding as he considers the new information.

 

“Tommy, don’t,” Oliver says, snagging his friend by the arm. Tommy gives quiet protest. “We are trying to make a good impression tonight, remember? So, don’t mess with them.”

 

“Hey,” he says, pulling his arm free of Oliver’s grasp and straightening out his jacket. “I only make good impressions.”

 

Oliver gives him a dry look and Felicity snorts.

 

“Somehow I doubt that,” she laughs, stepping past them to catch up to the rest of the group. Tommy says something to Oliver, but she can’t make it out.

 

When they pick out the next place, it’s only moderately less crowded than all of the other places they’d walked past. But they have some fun Halloween themed cocktails on the menu and Sara orders them all something called the Witches’ Brew. The drinks are smoking when the bartender slides them over the bar and Felicity thinks that’s probably a bad sign, but she drinks it anyway.

 

Oliver leaves in search of the restroom and while he’s gone, Nate comes in. He has three other people with him, two men and a woman. He introduces the dark haired man as Ray and the woman as Ray’s girlfriend, Nora. The other man has light hair and some scruff and Nate introduces him as Billy.

 

Ray spots Felicity as Amaya introduces her and snaps his fingers. “Mei!” He says excitedly and Felicity nods happily, glad someone has finally recognized her.

 

They merge from two groups into one easily. Sara takes an interest in getting to know Nora while Amaya and Nate create their own little world. Ray seems eager to test Felicity’s geekiness and, usually, she’d be annoyed by a man trying to quiz her. She doesn’t think Ray means any harm, though, as he listens to her responses and opinions eagerly. She thinks he’s just looking for a kindred spirit.

 

When Oliver comes back, he seems lost by the conversation, but sticks with them until Tommy calls him over to settle a bet between him and Zari. Felicity only notices he’s disappeared when she sees that Billy has taken his spot next to her.

 

On the way to the next bar, the group shifts again without Felicity’s notice. Ray has found himself pulled into Zari and Tommy’s playful (she thinks) arguing and it leaves her with Billy for company. He’s nice and seems to easily pick up the conversation where Ray left off, but she thinks it’s more by virtue of being around Ray than of any real investment in the tech news they were discussing. Felicity doesn’t mind, though, mostly because she’s having such a good time and whatever was in that Witches’ Brew is certainly helping.

 

It isn’t until Billy offers to get her another drink at the next place and heads to the bar that she realizes how aloof Oliver has become. He’s standing at the corner of the pub table they’ve taken over and just seems to be letting everyone else converse around him. She sidles up next to him and prods at his arm.

 

“Hey,” she says quietly and when he grumbles the word back at her she frowns. “Why are you all grumpy now?”

 

“I’m not,” he says simply, lifting his glass to sip from the brown liquid within. Felicity picks up the scent of whiskey and wrinkles her nose.

 

“Okay,” she says dragging the word out just enough to tell him she’s not buying it. “Then why are you standing here by yourself? I thought we were having a good time.”

 

“You seemed to be having a good time with Billy,” he shrugs. “I didn’t want to interrupt.”

 

“Interrupt?” She echoes confused. Shooting him a pout. “Why are you being so weird?”

 

“I’m not,” he snaps, finally looking over at her. “Can you just leave it?”

 

Felicity flinches, falling back on her heels. She doesn’t know what happened. She thought they’d been having a good time and Oliver had seemed so focused on her. Or maybe she’d imagined it. But she didn’t think so. He’d been teasing her drink choices all night while stealing small sips from her glass and whenever someone asked him who he was supposed to be, he’d sling his arm around her shoulder and say “I’m her sidekick.”

 

“Sure, fine, whatever,” she grumbles moving away from him. His fingers graze over her elbow, like he already regrets snapping at her, but Billy comes back with her drink and she pulls him over to the opposite end of the table where Sara and Ray are chatting.

 

She avoids Oliver for the rest of the time at the bar.

 

“Alright, party people,” Zari announces after a while, her empty glass hitting the table top loudly. It has the desired effect, pulling everyone’s attention. “Finish up your drinks and we’re out of here.”

 

It’s like she’s said the magic words because suddenly everyone is tossing their drinks back, no matter how much is left in their glasses, and then they’re filing out of the bar. Felicity takes a deep breath as they hit the open air. The chill feels good after the overheated bar and she lets it wash over her.

 

Arms come around her waist and Sara rests her chin on Felicity’s shoulder.

 

“Feel that?” She asks quietly. Felicity nods, knowing exactly what she means. 

 

She looks over to Amaya and Zari and can tell they’re letting it settle into their skins as well. The change of the seasons. The switch to the darkest, coldest part of the year. It feels like change. It feels like power.

 

“I think we’re done for the night,” Sara announces pulling away from Felicity. Tommy whines behind her and Nate tries to argue, but even Amaya is nodding in agreement. Zari already has her phone out in search of a car.

 

Excitement buzzes under Felicity’s skin, knowing what comes next.

 

\---

 

When they ask their driver to drop them in a random area between towns, he gives them a strange look but otherwise doesn’t comment. Felicity figures Zari tips him well for the trouble anyway. The area is familiar to them, though, and there’s already a fire pit waiting for them. Sara moves around it, touching up twigs and moving things, but Felicity thinks she’s trying to hide the magical starting of the fire from the boys.

 

Which, if she were a little more sober, she’d probably be having way more anxiety about Oliver and Tommy being with them.

 

“When did you even get this set up?” Amaya asks, following Sara around the pit.

 

“She made us help her yesterday,” Tommy says and he’s definitely complaining about it. Felicity thinks he’s still bitter Sara had called their night early. She can’t find it in her to care that he’s been inconvenienced by their celebration, though.

 

The fire blazes to life, catching faster than it should be able to, but no one comments.

 

“‘Us’,” Sara scoffs. “You barely even helped. If anything, Oliver should be the one complaining and I’m not hearing anything from him.”

 

Felicity doesn’t think Oliver’s said more than a few words since their argument in the bar anyway, but she keeps that to herself. Instead she unzips her coat, stripping it to reveal the black t-shirt underneath, and steps close to the fire to absorb it’s warmth. There are some logs in the sand around the fire, clearly meant for sitting, but no one takes them up just yet. Sara sets her phone down on one of them as a familiar playlist blasts from the speakers.

 

She grabs Amaya’s arms and swings her around next to the bonfire. The two laugh and Zari comes up besides Felicity to wrap her arm around her shoulders and sway to the song as well.

 

“You guys are so weird,” Tommy calls, but he doesn’t sound like he minds as much this time. Especially when Sara pulls a flask from inside her jacket and tosses it at him.

 

It doesn’t take long for Tommy to join in on the festivities, dancing around the fire with the rest of them. Felicity thinks Tommy may be the kind of person who will go along with anything if it looks like a good time. She’s running out of breath and the alcohol is making her head spin a little, so she drops onto one of the logs and just watches for a bit.

 

When Oliver sits down next to her, she sits up straight, her shoulders tense.

 

“Hey,” he says quietly. When she doesn’t reply more than tossing her head a little, he sighs. “I’m sorry I snapped at you earlier. That wasn’t okay.”

 

“No, it wasn’t,” she says, sniffing and trying to hold on to her anger. Then she sighs as well and turns to face him, her knees bumping ungracefully against him. “Why did you snap at me?”

 

“I don’t know,” he says, looking away from her towards the flames. No one seems to have any interest in what they’re talking about and, even if they did, she knows they wouldn’t be able to hear them over Sara’s music.

 

Felicity sighs. “You’re a terrible liar.”

 

They go quiet for a moment and Felicity begins to feel some level of disappointment. She doesn’t know why she’d expected honesty from him. It’s just that for some inexplicable reason she feels like she can trust him. So, tonight? That stings.

 

“I was jealous,” he says in a rush, startling her. She frowns, looking back over at him.

 

“Jealous?” She echoes, confused. “What? Why? Of Billy? I don't even know him, we were just talking. And, even if I did like him or – God  _ like _ – whatever, why would that matter? You don’t–”

 

Oliver cuts her off by kissing her. His hands come up to her jaw and her fingers circle his wrists on instinct. She leans into it for a moment, caught up in the feel of him, before pulling back with a gasp. She looks around, worried the others will have caught them. Caught them. Like they’ve done something wrong.

 

“Sorry, I shouldn’t have–”

 

This time, Felicity cuts him off. Once she’s sure no one could give a fuck about their kiss, she leans back in and pulls him towards her by the collar of his borrowed jacket. The material is rough under her fingers and Oliver’s scruff tickles. But his lips are soft and when her tongue swipes out against them, she revels in the way his mouth falls open in surprise, the way he kisses her deeper.

 

Maybe it’s the night or the alcohol. Maybe it’s just something about Oliver. But her skin prickles and she feels her magic rushing in her veins, like it’s being called to, begging for her to unleash her power.

 

Someone gives a shriek of laughter and they pull apart, startled by the reminder that they aren’t alone. Felicity laughs, shaking her head, and her magic eases, becoming complacent once again where it rushes through her bloodstream. She stands, holding her hand out to Oliver.

 

“Come on,” she says, tossing her head to indicate the bonfire behind her. He seems conflicted for a moment, but takes her hand and lets her leverage him to his feet.

 

By the time she gets home that night, Felicity is certain no one saw their kiss. She likes the idea that the moment existed just for them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next part will be coming out on Wednesday!


	3. Chapter 3

**III.**

 

The next morning, she has a hangover and box full of clothing she needs to return to Dinah’s store. She regrets agreeing to be the one to take the items back, but it had really only been Amaya and herself who had borrowed things from the store.

 

Well, and Oliver, she supposes. Technically.

 

Halfway into town, she decides to text Sara to tell her to let Oliver know she’s planning on returning the clothes today, if he wants to return his mask and jacket as well. Sara texts back almost immediately  _ hungover. text him urself. _ And attaches Oliver’s number.

 

He meets her outside Dinah’s store. It isn’t open and Felicity assumes Dinah and her own mother are celebrating the change of seasons as well. She knew they were meeting up with some older witches Dinah knows last night and she really doesn’t want to imagine what kind of trouble Donna may have gotten into.

 

“Hey,” he calls when he spots her stepping out her car. She passes his bike, parked a few spots away from her car, as she heads towards him. He’s holding the jacket in one hand and a cardboard coffee carrier in the other.

 

She could swoon.

 

“Hey, sorry for the last minute text,” she says as she reaches him. He shakes his head, frowning at her.

 

“Don’t worry about it,” he says, but he’s studying her in and odd way and she raises her eyebrows at him. “Sorry, just. You weren’t kidding about the hair color being temporary.”

 

“Oh!” Felicity says, reaching up to pat her ponytail, back to its usual blonde color. She hadn’t even thought about it this morning when she’d removed the enchantment from her hair. She forces a laugh and moves past him to unlock the door to the shop. “Yeah, just one wash was all it took I guess. Pretty cool, huh?”

 

“Yeah,” he nods, stepping through the door when she holds it open to him. Felicity resists the urge to dump the box of items and deal with them later, but she’d feel bad if Dinah ended up putting them away. “Oh, I got you a coffee.”

 

He sets the carrier down on a stray end table.

 

“Thanks,” she says, setting the box down on an old armchair and taking one of the coffees. She takes a sip and resists the urge to flinch at how bitter it is. It’s caffeine, so she’ll suck it up. “I can put your things back, you don’t have to stick around.”

 

“Actually, I was hoping we could talk,” he says a little hesitantly.

 

“Uh oh,” Felicity laughs, flipping on the overhead lights in the store this time. She picks Amaya’s pirate hat out of the box and moves to that side of the store. “Look, I can save you the trouble. We were both drunk last night and, you know, it was Halloween. There’s a magic there, right? It’s not a big deal if you regret kissing me. We’re adults, right?”

 

She rights the hat on a mannequin head and spins to face him, plastering a smile on her face. She’d woken up this morning and remembered that kiss and, well, she’d freaked out. Not because it wasn’t great or because she didn’t think she definitely had feelings for Oliver. It’s just that she doesn’t know him very well and it’s been a while since she’s tried to do anything serious with someone.

 

“Felicity,” he sighs, stepping up to her. He’s still clutching the jacket in his hand. “It’s not that I regret it. It was…  _ really _ nice. It’s just that up until a few days ago, I wasn’t even sure I was gonna stick around and, if I am, I need to get that figured out. Things have been really complicated for me lately and I don’t want to put my problems on your plate. Does that make sense?”

 

“Completely,” she nods. “But, for the record, if you just need to talk about whatever you’re dealing with, you can talk to me. Just because we shared a few very good kisses doesn’t mean we can’t be friends.”

 

“I’m really glad to hear you say that,” he says, grinning. “I could probably use some friends who aren’t Sara.”

 

Felicity laughs, nodding in agreement and Oliver holds his hand out suddenly.

 

“So, friends?” He asks.

 

Felicity takes it, shaking it once. “Friends.”

 

“Good,” he nods, pulling his hand back. 

 

He reaches into the pocket of his leather jacket and pulls out the mask from last night, dangling it on his fingers in front of her. Felicity takes it from him, turning to put it back where she’d found it last night. She hears him moving away from her and quickly removes the charm she’d used to change it’s color before she leaves it on the shelf.

 

“Oh, Oliver,” she calls to him, spinning around to search for him on the other side of the store. He raises his eyebrows in question. “You should keep the jacket. You look good in green.”

 

He looks down at the item in question and nods to himself.

 

“Thanks,” he says quietly and Felicity has never felt so okay after being told ‘let’s just be friends.’

 

\---

 

True to their word, Felicity and Oliver do become friends.

 

After Halloween, he becomes more comfortable around Zari and Amaya as well, tagging along with Sara when they all go out. They banter and tease each other and Oliver doesn’t close himself down every time they run into Billy. Which, Felicity has to admit, seems to be often.

 

Now that they know Ray, Nora, and Billy, it’s like they see each other everywhere. Ray and Nora don’t live in town, but they stop by often to shop or visit Nate. Billy moved into town recently and Nate was the first friend he made. It expands the group a little, which she has to admit is nice.

 

Billy is nice and, yeah, maybe he has a thing for her, but Felicity didn’t pursue things with Oliver for a reason and the same goes for Billy. She’s just not ready for something serious at the moment. And, if she was, trying to have a relationship with Billy while fostering a crush on Oliver – one that is highly unusual because she  _ knows _ it’s requited but there are valid reasons for them to take their time – would be extremely unfair.

 

Oliver moves out of Sara’s place and rents an apartment above a store front downtown and it shifts from him tagging along with Sara to him just inviting Felicity to hang out. It’s easy and nice.

 

“So, why did you decide to just pick up and move out here?” She asks one of the first times it’s just the two of them hanging out. They’re at the little coffeehouse she likes, sitting at a table tucked into a corner in the back.

 

Oliver drinks his coffee black, because of course he does, so he got it as soon as he’d ordered. She’s still waiting on her vanilla iced macchiato.

 

“That’s kind of a long story,” he hedges and she gives him a look for it, throwing her hands wide to indicate she really has nothing but time. He chuckles, shaking his head and Felicity doesn’t think he’s ever denied her curiosity before, so she knows he probably won’t now.

 

She also knows it’s different. This isn’t asking about his friendship with Sara (he dated her sister) or when his birthday is (May) or what his favorite color is and why (blue and “I don’t know, Felicity, I just like it.”). She can tell just from the way his demeanor shifts that this is something else, something more.

 

She wants desperately to hear all of his answers to all of her questions.

 

“I guess the easiest answer is that my parents died,” he says and her chest clenches a little. She resists the urge to say ‘sorry’ because she knows, firsthand, how little that word means after a death. Instead, she reaches across the table to wrap her fingers around his wrist. “It was kind of sudden.”

 

“How long ago did it happen?” She asks, softer this time. It’s always hung around him. A dark energy. She’d prescribed the word sadness to it, but she knows now. The murky gray of sudden loss. Emptiness in a space where it had once been full. That’s grief.

 

“A few months before I ran into Sara,” he answers. “It was crazy. I don’t go out to the bars much anymore, but something made me go out that night and I just ended up in her path, I guess.”

 

“What, like it was fate?” Felicity asks, laughing softly. Oliver glances down at where her fingers still rest on the inside of his wrist, her index finger stroking the vein there absentmindedly.

 

“Maybe,” he shrugs. “It led me here, didn’t it?”

 

Felicity nods, because, well. It did. For whatever that means. It led them both to this moment right now. 

 

Oliver tells her about his parents and his sister. How, a few weeks after the funeral, Thea had taken her share of their inheritance and left behind a note. She’d said she needed to find somewhere she could be happy and suggested he do the same.

 

The next time she sees him, Felicity brings him a small sprig of fresh thyme from her mother’s garden and tells him to wear it on his lapel, explaining that thyme is believed to help ease people over the worst of their grief. Oliver gives her a funny look, but takes the safety pin she offers. He wears the thyme on the lapel of his thrifted army jacket until it begins to dry out and droop.

 

\---

 

Sara meets someone new the same weekend Amaya and Nate finally go on their first date. And, Felicity would take offense to the sudden coupling up of the friend group if it didn’t give her and Zari the unique opportunity to do nothing but tease the other two.

 

“I think it’s nice,” Donna says as they package up herbs from the garden. The plants continue to grow even in the frigid temperatures and Felicity knows it’s not due to any natural phenomenon. Her mother ties a bow into the twine holding together a sprig of holly. “Just in time for the holidays.”

 

Felicity rolls her eyes.

 

“Whatever at least now maybe we won’t have to deal with Nate and Amaya making mooneyes at each other and pretending they don’t know they’re doing it,” Zari comments.

 

“Hey!” Amaya cries, tossing a pine needle towards her. It bounces harmlessly off the back of her hand.

 

They’ve picked out the most winter-y things in the garden, the same way they do every year come the end of November. Donna will take them and turn them into simple decorations or ornate wreaths. Nothing too over-the-top, which is surprising when it comes to her mother, and nothing with too much of a reliance on one holiday or another. Dinah likes to take them and sell them in her store or gift them to fellow shop owners.

 

Felicity’s pretty sure everyone in town thinks they’re enchanted or cursed or whatever. But they’re just wreaths.

 

The wreaths and decorations will be classy and beautiful, in natural tones and made with materials that can easily be tossed into a compost to biodegrade. Which, Felicity figures, it kind of ironic. Because when it comes to the holiday season, Dinah and Donna’s house turns into a chaotic mix of Hanukkah and Christmas.  _ Chrismukkah _ Sara will call it and Felicity doesn’t even think she’s making that reference intentionally.

 

“It’s not that big of a deal,” Sara says. “Nate and Amaya were already basically together and who knows if things with Nyssa will even last.”

 

“You’re so morbid, Sara,” Felicity argues.

 

“I’m realistic,” Sara refutes.

 

“I’m just saying you shouldn’t already be counting things out with Nyssa just because you aren’t sure how they’ll go,” Felicity says, shrugging as she slices through a the twine and hands it to her mom.

 

“Isn’t that exactly what you and Oliver did?” Sara challenges. The scissors slip and Felicity catches her finger with the tip of them. A small wound opens and she sees blood begin to swell.

 

“No,” she pouts, shoving her finger in her mouth to soothe the wound. She ignores the way Sara is smirking at her. She continues, her finger still in her mouth, “Who says Oliver and I did  _ anything _ ?”

 

“Oh my God,  _ please _ ,” Sara cries at the same time Zari gives a loud groan and Amaya gives her a look that echoes the cringing emoji. Okay,  _ fine _ , whatever.

 

“Wait, Oliver as in Sara’s friend?” Donna asks, having stalled her work to give the conversation her full attention now that it’s about Felicity’s love life. Felicity groans. “Tall, muscular Oliver?”

 

“Oh, God,  _ mom _ ,” Felicity says, dropping the twine and moving away from them to rinse her finger in the kitchen sink.

 

“What?” Donna says. “I have eyes, Felicity.”

 

Sara laughs and Felicity resists the urge to shove her head in the garbage disposal.

 

“What about Oliver?” Dinah asks, coming into the kitchen with a potted poinsettia. She shoes Felicity away from the sink and sets the plant in the basin.

 

“Nothing,” Felicity tries.

 

“Just that he and Felicity are, for some reason, acting like they aren’t constantly seconds away from jumping each other.”

 

It’s Amaya that says it and Felicity shoots her a look of betrayal. Though, she supposes it’s what she gets for teasing her about Nate. Turnabout and fair play and all that.

 

What’s surprising is the way Sara is also shooting Amaya a dark look.

 

“Oh,” Dinah says, but Felicity thinks she means more than just that.

 

“Mom,” Sara says in a low, warning tone.

 

“What?” Dinah asks. “I haven’t said anything!”

 

“What am I missing?” Felicity asks, looking between them with a frown. The Lance women do this sometimes and, if she didn’t know better, Felicity would swear telepathy was part of their magical abilities.

 

“Nothing, dear,” Dinah says, patting Felicity’s arm consolingly and turning the water in the sink on to refresh the poinsettia. “Just be careful around Oliver, that’s all.”

 

“Don’t mind her, Felicity,” Sara says, her voice suddenly too light, fake. She busies herself with her own task. “She’s just overcautious, that’s all.”

 

Felicity frowns, but when she glances over at Zari across the kitchen from her she gives a bewildered shrug as well. So, okay, at least it’s not just her. But, her anxiety is suddenly bubbling in her stomach as she considers all of the things she still might not know about Oliver Queen.

 

“When is your friend coming over, Sara?” Dinah asks, as if the vibe of the kitchen hasn’t been suddenly altered.

 

Sara shrugs. “I don’t know. I told her she could stop by whenever.”

 

“What friend?” Zari asks.

 

“I invited Nora to come help us,” she explains.

 

“Help us?” Zari echoes.

 

“With magical herb wreath making?” Felicity expands.

 

“Yeah,” Sara says and then she looks up at them, frowning. “Nora’s a witch.”

 

“What?” Felicity and Zari cry out at the same moment. Amaya presses her fingers to her mouth, clearly suppressing a laugh at their expense.

 

“You two really need to get out more,” she teases.

 

\---

 

A few days later, she’s hanging out at Oliver’s apartment. He’s on the second floor, above the hardware store, and has a nice little patio that hangs off the back of the building. It looks out into the alley between the buildings, which isn’t the most beautiful sight, but Felicity had helped him pick out an iron patio set from Dinah’s store and she likes it here.

 

“You do know I have heat inside, right?” Oliver asks as he joins her on the patio. He sets a porcelain mug down in front of her and she wraps her hands around it, pulling it towards herself to inhale the spearmint scented steam rising from it. She knows he prefers black tea, but he keeps the mint tea around just because she likes it. That knowledge does something to her insides.

 

“I just like it when it gets cold, you know?” She says. “That’s what I miss most about Boston, I think. The winters. It almost never snows here.”

 

Oliver nods in understanding, settling into the chair across from her. He drinks from his own mug while Felicity blows lightly on the tea in hers. She likes that they can sit in silence like this sometimes. He doesn’t make her feel like she always needs to be filling the silence with mindless chatter. A lot of the time she still does, but it’s more because she likes talking to him than because she feels like she has to.

 

There’s a soft sound behind her that makes Oliver look up in alarm and then a high pitched meow that pulls her attention as well. Gary moves along the railing of the patio, his tail flicking high in the air as he cries out for attention. Felicity huffs, setting her tea down to stand up and join him at the banister.

 

“How did he even get up here?” Oliver asks, frowning at the stray as Felicity scratches under his chin. He preens with the attention, sitting down on the railing and letting her scratch behind his ears.

 

“Don’t you know?” She smirks. “Gary is magic.”

 

“Right,” Oliver chuckles, standing up as well to peer over the railing. “Or he just has a killer jump radius.”

 

Felicity glances over it as well, seeing the dumpster with boxes piled on top that Gary likely jumped off of. She shakes her head, pulling away from the railing.

 

“Who names a cat Gary, anyway?” He asks.

 

“Well, if you ask Sara, she didn’t name him,” Felicity shrugs. “That’s how he introduced himself.”

 

“Yeah, that sounds like Sara,” he says, shaking his head. Felicity twists to lean back against the railing to better face Oliver. Gary gives a quiet squawk of annoyance at the loss of her attention. When he realizes he isn’t getting it back, he jumps from the railing to the patio table to investigate their drinks. Oliver watches with a frown.

 

“Can I ask you something?” She asks. Oliver nods absently, his focus still on Gary as he sniffs at Felicity’s abandoned mug. “Dinah said something the other day. She told me to be careful around you.”

 

Oliver is pointedly not looking at her now. “Is that a question?”

 

She gives him a sharp poke in the bicep and he feigns injury, his other hand coming up to soothe the spot.

 

“Felicity, I’m,” he starts haltingly, frowning. She knows he’s trying to find the words and holds her breath, forcing herself to give him the moment to say what he wants to say the way he intends. He turns towards her suddenly. He says, “I’m not a good person. Or, at least, I wasn’t for a long time. But, I’m trying to be one now.”

 

Felicity blinks a few times taking this in. Finally, she shrugs.

 

“I figure that’s half the battle for most of us, right?” She asks. “Deciding to be better.”

 

Oliver’s brow pinches but he gives her that soft smile she likes. The same one he givers her when she explains a complicated code or solves a problem for him like it’s obvious. Like she’s a puzzle he may never figure out, but that, maybe, he’s up for the challenge.

 

“Yeah,” he says quietly. “Yeah, maybe.”

 

“But, you know, Oliver,” she says, taking a half step towards him. She finds his hand where it rests on the railing, settling hers over top of it. “You don’t have to hide whoever you were or whatever from me. I know who you are now. It’s not gonna change anything for me.”

 

He nods, but she can see him turn introspective. His gaze falls from her to their hands on the railing, studying the contrast of their fingers for a moment. Suddenly, he looks back up at her.

 

“Felicity, would you want to go to dinner with me?” He asks and she frowns.

 

“I thought we were eating here,” she says. He stares at her for a second and suddenly she realizes what he’s asking. “Oh. Oh! You mean like– like  _ dinner _ dinner. Like–”

 

“A date,” Oliver says, but he’s grinning at her now, that wide, beautiful grin that makes her feel like she could melt through the floor to the alley below. “Yeah.”

 

“Yes,” she says, speaking over him on accident.

 

“Yes?” He clarifies.

 

“Yes!” She repeats, grinning like an idiot and she’s so glad the only one around to hear this ridiculous exchange is Gary. But she also kind of hopes she remembers it forever.

 

\---

 

She almost doesn’t tell anyone else. Mostly because she knows how crazy they can get over these things and she had just spent the past two weeks teasing Amaya and Sara about their new relationships. But also because she likes her and Oliver’s quiet relationship and the minute she involves everyone else, that bubble is going to break.

 

But she tells them because she knows she can’t get away with not telling them. Also, because she does love their particular brand of crazy.

 

“I’m not sure who’s more excited about your date with Oliver,” Sara says as they sit in Felicity’s living room, sipping wine. “You or your mom.”

 

Felicity can hear Donna upstairs, digging through Felicity’s closet to find outfit options for the date.

 

“Definitely my mom,” she laughs and Sara nods, grinning. Felicity settles back into the couch, propping her arm up on the back of it and resting her chin on her fist. “What about you?”

 

“What  _ about _ me?” Sara frowns.

 

“Are you okay with me and Oliver?” She clarifies.

 

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Sara laughs. “I told you months ago, he’s all yours.”

 

“Yeah,” Felicity says, rolling her eyes. “But that was before it was actually a possibility.”

 

“Felicity,” she says seriously, sitting up straighter to make her listen. “After the night you met, Oliver wouldn’t stop fishing for information about you. He couldn’t just  _ ask _ because he doesn’t do that, but, trust me, it’s always been an actual possibility.”

 

“Oh,” Felicity breathes, because she didn’t know that. Her stomach squirms with the knowledge, a warm mix of nervousness and excitement. God, she really likes him.

 

“Plus, you know, I love you and I love Oliver,” Sara shrugs. “So what’s not to love about the two of you getting together, right?”

 

Felicity smiles and nods. It helps to know that Sara is comfortable with her relationship with Oliver. She still doesn’t know the full extent of their history, but she wouldn’t want Sara to feel like the odd man out if they were to begin a real relationship.

 

Of course, that’s all getting ahead of herself. They have to make it through the first date first.

 

There’s a crash upstairs and Sara looks worriedly up towards the ceiling above them. Felicity takes a large drink from her wine glass. After a moment, Donna calls out that she’s okay and Sara laughs again.

 

“Are you actually going to wear anything she picks out for you?” She asks.

 

“God, no,” Felicity says. “But it gives her something to do.”

 

“Well, you have fun with all of,” she motions towards the ceiling, “ _ that _ . But, I have to go.”

 

“What? No!” Felicity cries, reaching for her arm as she stands. “You can’t leave me alone to deal with this.”

 

“I’m afraid I have a better offer tonight,” Sara says, pulling her arm away from Felicity and setting her empty wine glass on the table. She reaches for her jacket where she’d tossed it onto the back of the couch. “Nyssa and I are meeting up.”

 

Felicity gasps, pressing her hand to her heart and feigning injury. “Does witches before bitches mean nothing anymore?”

 

“Okay, first of all, don’t ever said that again,” Sara says, pointing seriously at her. Felicity nods in agreement. “And second of all, no it doesn’t. Not when I have a smokin’ hot babe with a bad attitude waiting for me and I’m already late.”

 

Just at that moment, Donna comes rushing down the hallway and peeks her head in the door.

 

“Felicity, hun, don’t you have any  _ short _ skirts?” She asks. “Honestly, you’d think you were a nun.”

 

Felicity frowns, thinking about the hemlines of her skirts and wondering just how much shorter her mother would like her to go. She looks desperately to Sara, who’s zipping up her jacket.

 

“Don’t leave me,” she pleads quietly.

 

Sara pecks Donna on the cheek before she leaves. Traitor.

 

\---

 

“Wow,” Felicity breathes as she slides into the passenger seat of the car. Oliver is holding the door open for her and she’s wearing red and something about it all feels like magic. She smirks up at him before he can close the door for her. “Who’d you steal this from?”

 

He gives her a tired look and closes the door on her laugh. She watches him round the front of the car, his palm gliding over the sleek black hood as he goes.

 

“If you must know, I borrowed it,” he says as he climbs into his own seat. Felicity shoots him a look. “From a dealership. For a large sum of money.”

 

He revs the engine as he backs out of her driveway and she shakes her head.

 

“Show off,” she comments.

 

Oliver smirks but then they’re driving down the long stretch of road that leads to the interstate and Felicity is suddenly overcome with anxiety at the realization that she hasn’t been in a car with Oliver since the first time they met. And that was like a minute and thirty seconds  _ at most _ . This is a drive to the next city, to the fancy Italian place with high-priced wine and authentic sauce and-

 

Oh, God, she wishes she could remember that calming enchantment Amaya taught her that time she had a panic attack after she’d come home from college. She hadn’t really needed it in years, but there’s something about Oliver, dressed in a perfectly tailored suit and looking more gorgeous than anyone has a right to, that just makes her so– 

 

“Nervous,” Oliver says quietly, like he’s read her mind.

 

“Yeah,” she admits, chuckling at herself to try and make it better. It doesn’t. “A little.”

 

“No, I,” he starts, glancing over at her with a frown. “I meant me.”

 

“Oh,” Felicity breathes, frowning. She studies him for a moment, his body language looking relaxed. But his fingers fidget against the steering wheel and his posture seems off. Somehow that makes her feel a little better. She adds, lightly, “Well, line forms behind me.”

 

“Is that crazy?” He asks, giving a laugh that sounds just as brittle as her own. “I mean, what do we have to be nervous about? We already know each other. We’re friends.”

 

She thinks, maybe that’s the problem. It makes it scarier somehow. Like there’s more to lose if they screw this up.

 

Not that she’s going to put that out there into the universe. Because, then she thinks of the way he’d kissed her on Halloween. How he opens up to her even when she can tell it terrifies him. The way he’s patient with her mom and gets along with her friends and she just–

 

They’re not going to screw it up, she decides. Not tonight.

 

“Hey,” she says, putting her hand over his arm on the console between them. She sits up a little straighter, trying to look braver than she feels. “It’s just dinner, right? Let’s just take the pressure out of it. It’s just you and me, getting dinner.”

 

Oliver seems to consider this, watching the empty road ahead of them, before he nods.

 

“Just you and me,” he echoes, shooting her a sideway look and she smiles. He lifts his arm, adjusting it so her palm falls against his and lacing their fingers together.

 

Something about the night shifts and, okay, Felicity is still nervous because it’s practically her natural state, but it’s a good nervous. It’s a butterflies-in-her-stomach, excited-about-the-unknown kind of nervous.

 

And when Oliver kisses her on her front porch at the end of the night, soft and slow like they’ll have every opportunity for more, it’s the kind of nervous she could get used to.

 

\---

 

It’s not a date, technically. There was no formal plan, they aren’t dressed up. By all accounts, it’s just them hanging out like they’ve grown accustomed to. Felicity’s opened a bottle of wine and they’re sitting on her couch just chatting about the job interview Oliver had today.

 

Except, now, Felicity can sit with her legs stretched across his lap and Oliver can kneed the muscles in her calf with gentle fingers. And it’s weird, but it’s not. Normal but somehow exciting. Oliver finishes his story about the woman who owns the personal security firm and her husband who helps run it. Felicity leans over to set her wine glass on the table.

 

And then he kisses her.

 

It’s hardly the first time. Kissing Oliver has easily become one of Felicity’s favorite pastimes. But, this time, when he kisses her, she finds herself in his lap, straddling his thighs between her own. They’ve had two and half dates at this point, actual formal things, and only one of them got interrupted by a panicked call from a client who needed tech support. And, besides those, they’ve hardly been apart.

 

But they haven’t done much beyond this. By sheer lack of opportunity. Or maybe some level of fear on one or both sides. Every time she kisses him, Felicity feels powerful and helpless all at once. Now, her body buzzes everywhere it connects with his and she can feel her magic rushing inside of her again, like the first time they’d kissed. It feels like it’s making waves in her bloodstream, pushing itself to the surface.

 

Oliver is moving while she’s focusing on pushing the magic down, his hands sliding down below her ass to lift her up as he pushes to his feet. And then she isn’t really paying much attention to how her magic is reacting to him, because he’s kissing the skin revealed by the neckline of her t-shirt and his hair is soft between her fingers.

 

He knows the layout of her house nearly as well as she does and she barely notices they’ve made it up the stairs until he’s stalling, pulling back to check her reaction.

 

“Is this- is this okay?” He asks, pulling back enough to meet her gaze.

 

“Definitely,” she says immediately, nodding a little more than she needs to and using her hands on his shoulders to adjust the way she’s wrapped around him. She repeats, a little slower, “Definitely okay.”

 

Oliver lets out a breathy laugh and echoes her with a quiet ‘okay’ in response, but it’s lost under Felicity’s mouth, eager to swallow the sound of his laugh. Something in her chest roars with the way he responds to her, pressing further, kissing her harder as he finds the bedroom.

 

He eases them down onto the bed, her sitting on his lap, and she thinks of the first time she’d met him. How she’d rushed in here, flushed and nervous after seeing him shirtless in her bathroom. She wishes she’d paid more attention, prepared herself more, because she can feel the pull of his muscles between her thighs, has traced the planes of his back through his shirt. Her mind buzzes, pulling her from the moment and dredging up uncomfortable anxieties at the reminder they’ve never been this intimate before.

 

And then Oliver’s hands slide under her shirt. Rough, warm fingers glide over the skin of her back, leaving goosebumps in their wake. His kiss turns soft and pliant as he waits for her to move them forward, to decide to cross this line.

 

She stops thinking as she urges his shirt over his head, gently pushes him down onto the mattress.

 

They’re a tangle of limbs and clothing as they attempt to shed the articles without leaving one another’s touch. Oliver fumbles with the clasp of her bra, Felicity pinches her finger in his belt buckle.

 

His fingers tighten on her hips as he slides inside of her and she has to hold her breath for a moment. She watches him, his head tilted back against the pillows, eyes closed in pleasure, and she’s caught for a moment in the beauty of him.

 

And then her palms begin to glow where they rest on his chest and she stares down at them, struck by the light that moves so brightly through her veins and pours from her skin.

 

Oliver moves, like he might sit up to look at her and she panics. Her nails dig into his skin.

 

“Can you just,” she starts, hoping if her voice wavers he’ll think it’s just the sex. “Can you just keep your eyes closed for a second?”

 

He frowns, but doesn’t open his eyes.

 

“Is everything okay?”

 

Felicity lifts her hands, flipping them so she can inspect her palms. The veins that move beneath her skin glow, so brightly it almost hurts to look at. She’s only seen her magic manifest to be visible a few times, before she’d learned to control it, and never quite like this.

 

“Yeah,” she says. “Yeah, you just- you feel amazing.”

 

Oliver gives a quiet little moan of agreement. It’s not a lie. But it is troubling. Every time she kisses him, she feels her magic react. Like it knows something she doesn’t. Like it’s calling to him. She’d been so caught up in him, she hadn’t been paying attention to the way her power was coming to the surface, pushing against her restraints.

 

She focuses for a moment and the glow fades enough that when she presses her palms to Oliver’s chest, it stifles the light pouring from her skin.

 

Oliver peaks one eye open, and she knows the lack of movement is killing him, can feel the strain of his muscles between her thighs.

 

“Are you alright?” He asks and she nods, jerking her hips against his suddenly. He huffs in response, moving his own hips to set a rhythm as his hands slide over her hips, to her back.

 

“I’m good,” she says, once they’ve established their rhythm. They move in sync, not too slow but not running for the finish line either. “I’m so,  _ so _ good.”

 

Felicity keeps her hands out of Oliver’s direct line of sight and he never brings it up.

 

\---

 

It’s stupid, Felicity knows, but she can’t help but feel a little bit like a giddy teenager being with Oliver. It’s not that everything is light and breezy all the time. He’s opened up more about his past with her, but she knows there are still things he’s afraid to share. And she hasn’t just been taking, instead she’s offered some of her own baggage as well.

 

They’re still learning things about each other. Some of it is surface level – like how Oliver hates the cold – and some of it is the big stuff – how Felicity’s dad walked out when she was seven and she hasn’t heard from him since.

 

Maybe it’s the friendship they shared before they finally went on that first date, or maybe it’s this strange way she’s felt connected to him since they met, but things with Oliver are almost startlingly easy.

 

He came over and celebrated Hanukkah with her and her mom for most of the nights, even brought Donna a present each night and helped her make the latkes. Felicity wasn’t sure who was swooning more, herself or her mother. She’d have sworn Oliver was the one with magic, bewitching them both to fall in love with him a little.

 

And she might be. It hasn’t been long, sure, and she’s not about to use the actual word because that’s way too scary. And she’s not going to let her fears get in the way of this, not this time. But she really, really might be falling for him.

 

\---

 

She’s waiting in line for coffee at a different coffee house than her usual place. Oliver had woken her up early this morning, before either of their alarms, with soft kisses pressed to her collarbone. It had escalated from there and nearly made them both late to start their days. She can’t find it in herself to be bothered by the loss of sleep or the way she’d messily thrown her hair into its usual ponytail.

 

“Felicity?” She hears behind her. She’s placed her order and is waiting at the end of the counter for the coffee to come out before she has to get to her next client. She turns. “I thought that was you.”

 

Billy is standing behind her and she spots Nora and Ray in the line past him, waiting to order.

 

“Oh, hey!” She greets. “It’s been a while. How are you?”   
  


“Yeah,” he laughs. “I haven’t seen you much lately. I’ve been good. How’ve you been?”

 

Admittedly, Felicity has been spending so much time with Oliver and then dealing with the holidays that people outside of her immediate circle have sort of dropped off her radar. She feels bad, suddenly, as she realizes that she hasn’t really checked in on any of them recently. And she does like Billy, just maybe not in the way she thinks he might like her.

 

The barista calls her name and she reaches for the iced coffee waiting for her.

 

“Hey, uh, are you in a hurry?” He asks after she thanks the girl behind the counter. “Do you have a minute to catch up?”

 

Felicity checks the watch on her wrist – a Hanukkah gift from her mom – and considers it. Oliver had made her a little late this morning, but her first IT job had been quick and she has some time until the next one. She nods at Billy.

 

“Yeah,” she says, smiling. “Yeah, that’d be nice.”

 

They pick a table and she asks Billy how his job is going. He’s been working with the small police force in town, but she also knows he moved here from a big city and isn’t used to the small town politics and slow workload. She expects Ray and Nora to join them, but frowns when she spots them settled into a table across the room.

 

It takes her a minute before she realizes what’s happening. And by then it’s too late to save herself the uncomfortable interaction.

 

“So, you know, I’ve been wanting to ask this for a while, but then you got busy so I figured I’d wait,” he starts and Felicity’s whole body has gone tense.

 

“Billy,” she tries to interject, but clearly he’s worked up the courage and doesn’t intend to lose it.

 

“Would you want to go to dinner with me?” He asks.

 

Logically, she knows the entire coffee house isn’t listening to them. That’s just her anxiety talking. But, she’d swear the whole place holds its breath as he waits for her to answer. Or maybe that’s just him. She, on the other hand, is completely frozen. 

 

God, she should have just said she was too busy. But it’s best to rip the band-aid off now, isn’t it? It’s not fair to string him along and let him go on nursing a crush if it’s definitely not going to happen.

 

“I’m actually seeing someone,” she says finally, but her tongue feels like cotton. She hates having to do it, the way his smile melts for a moment before he plasters it back on, already shaking his head. “It’s fairly recent, but it is serious. I’m really sorry.”

 

“No, no,” he insists, clearing his throat uncomfortably. “It’s fine, you know. I should have guessed, honestly.”

 

She doesn’t know what to say to that, so she just keeps quiet. Her phone chimes in the pocket of her coat and she fishes it out. There’s a text from Oliver;  _ Are you free? I have a story to tell you _ . Her stomach churns with discomfort, but she still has to bite down a smile at the message. Instead, she looks back up at Billy and gives him a slight grimace.

 

“I actually have to go,” she says apologetically. “Work.”

 

It’s not a complete lie, even if she intends to call Oliver on the way to her next client. Billy nods and she takes her coffee and promises to see him around. Part of her hopes she’s wrong. Maybe some time without seeing her will let him move on.

 

Outside, she calls Oliver and intends to tell him about it. When he answers, his voice is light with laughter and he nearly immediately jumps into a story about his bosses, Lyla and John, and Felicity giggles along with him as she drives. She decides to tell him about Billy later.

 

\---

 

The rest of December passes in a blur of shared holiday traditions and family gatherings – by which she mostly means the patchwork family she and Donna have created over the years. Sara invites everyone over to her place to celebrate the new year and she finally introduces Nyssa to them. Felicity thinks the woman will be sticking around longer than Sara had initially expected.

 

Her friends cheer around her as it strikes midnight, clinking together glasses of champagne or sparkling cider. Oliver kisses her softly on the lips, one hand holding his champagne while the other sits warm and familiar at her hip. Felicity figures it’s a pretty good way to ring in the coming year.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter on Sunday!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little late today, sorry!

**IV.**

 

Oliver’s alarm goes off too early after a late night of wine and tangled bed sheets. Felicity whines as he pulls his body from beneath hers, settling her gently onto the pillow, to turn off the alarm. The pillow is cool against her cheek and as soon as he lifts the comforter to slip from the bed, the cold air infects their warm space. She whines again and Oliver chuckles.

 

“Too early,” she grumbles, opening one eye to peak at the windows. Outside, the sky is still dark, edging towards dawn, but not there yet. “Being up before the sun should be illegal. Or, at the very least, a real dick move.”

 

“Then today,” Oliver says, finding her wrist beneath the blankets and giving a gentle tug to encourage her to sit up. “You and I are a couple of real dicks.”

 

She pouts, but can’t stifle the laugh that bubbles up in her at the turn of phrase. She begrudgingly sits up, letting the comforter puff around her as she wraps it around her naked torso. Oliver is already pulling his jeans back on over his underwear and she sighs at the sight.

 

“How do you do this every day?” She asks.

 

“It’s not that bad, Felicity,” he says feigning annoyance, but she can tell he’s amused. “You get used to it. Plus, I don’t do it  _ every _ day.”

 

She frowns at that, watching him as he pulls his t-shirt over his head, searches for his other sock. He only gets up this early because of her. If he didn’t spend most nights at her house, he wouldn’t have to get up extra early to make it home to shower and get dressed.

 

“I mean, you know you don’t have to stay here all the time, right?” She asks, picking at the thread detailing in her comforter. “I wouldn’t be offended if you wanted to hit it and quit it every now and then.”

 

Oliver stops searching for his lost sock – it’s hidden from his sight on the other side of her dresser, she can see it – to give her a look at her turn of phrase. She lifts her hand up, pointing to the sock, and he rounds the dresser to grab it. He sits down on the edge of the bed to pull the pair on.

 

“Listen,” he says, turning to face her. “Some mornings it does suck getting up before the sun, but that’s because I’d rather lay here with you. Trust me, I am not complaining about missing out on an extra hour or so of sleep, okay?”

 

She nods. “Okay.”

 

“Good,” he says softly, leaning over to kiss her gently on the lips before he stands up. Felicity sighs, already missing the press of his mouth, and flops back into the pillows.

 

“Don’t go back to sleep,” Oliver chides her and she huffs, already sliding her phone off the nightstand to set another alarm for fifteen minutes.

 

“You know,” she says, her face half buried in the pillow as she cradles her phone and ignores him. Her eyes drift shut. “It could save you some sleep if you just showered here. You could keep some things here. I’m sure I could make some room in the dresser.”

 

The room goes quiet and she frowns, wondering if he’d slipped out without her hearing. She lifts her head to look around the room. Oliver is standing at her dresser with his back to her. He has his wrist up to fasten his watch around it, but he’s stopped in the middle of the movement.

 

“Oliver?” She calls, concerned. “You okay?”

 

He seems to snap out of it, finishing putting his watch back on his wrist, before he turns to face her again.

 

“Yeah, sorry, I just, uh,” he says and he’s typically the more eloquent of the two of them. And then Felicity realizes what she’d offered and how it must have sounded. “Isn’t a drawer kind of a big step? Like, that means something… doesn’t it?”

 

God, sometimes she forgets how new this is for both of them. She’s had relationships since college, but nothing serious. Nothing like this. She’s never really had anything like what she feels when she’s with Oliver. But, still, does he need to freak out over this?

 

“Oh my God,” she sighs, settling back into the pillows. “Please don’t freak out over this, okay? I wasn’t trying to rush anything, I was just offering a solution to the sleep issue. Let’s not make it a big deal.”

 

“No, Felicity, I just mean-”

 

“It’s way too early for this,” she grumbles, squeezing her eyes shut and trying not to be annoyed with him. He’s at her side suddenly, knelt down next to her side of the bed so they’re nearly at eye level.

 

“I’m not saying no,” he says gently. Stubbornly, Felicity keeps her eyes closed. “You just surprised me and I want to make sure we don’t rush anything.”

 

She sighs. Rushing things hasn’t really been their problem. It took him nearly a month after they’d first kissed for him to ask her out.

 

“Don’t be mad at me, please,” he tries again and she opens her eyes now, giving him a look. He offers her a small, apologetic smile. “Can we talk about it tonight?”

 

She gives in. “Yeah, I think we can do that.”

 

He nods once and then leans forward, just a touch, enough to wait for her. She makes him wait, for a moment at least, before she leans forward and meets him. The kiss is soft, apologetic, but she pulls away quickly, teasing him.

 

“Don’t go back to sleep,” he says again, teasing this time, and then he leaves.

 

She doesn’t fall back asleep, but only because her mind won’t shut up. When her alarm goes off, she’s grateful for the sound.

 

\---

 

The sky is still grey by the time she makes it to the track. Overcast clouds hide the sun as it struggles to break through them. The air is dry, though, so she isn’t concerned about the possibility of rain. The others are already there, waiting at the fence that surrounds the track. Sara and Zari lean against the black wire as Amaya stretches on the other side.

 

There’s a coffee carrier at Sara’s feet with one cup still settled into it. Felicity doesn’t waste time stooping down to grab it.

 

“You’re late,” Amaya says and Felicity doesn’t bother with more than a grunt of acknowledgement as she lifts the coffee to her lips. Maybe she’s spending too much time with Oliver.

 

“Late night?” Sara asks with a salacious smirk and, honestly, Felicity had nearly completely forgotten about all the great sex from the night before because Oliver was too busy acting like keeping a couple pairs of jeans at her house was the equivalent of a marriage proposal.

 

“Men are idiots,” she sighs, instead of answering the question. That wipes the amusement off her friends’ faces.

 

“Trouble in paradise?” Zari asks. Amaya straightens up from her stretches and comes to join them at the fence. Felicity feels bad for stealing the spotlight, considering they’re supposed to be cheering Amaya on as she runs a practice 5k.

 

But, also, if she keeps stewing over her conversation with Oliver this morning by herself, she’s going to lose her mind.

 

“This morning, I casually mentioned that it might be more sustainable for Oliver to keep some clothes for work at my house, so he doesn’t have to wake up extra early every morning just to go home and shower and get dressed, right?” She explains. “Totally logical. Except he completely freaked out. Talked about ‘big steps’ and not wanting to ‘rush things’.”

 

“Dramatic,” Zari says, rolling her eyes. But Sara is frowning, seeming to consider the information.

 

“Well, have you guys talked about where your relationship is at before?” She asks. “Like, actually talked about it, not just assumed you’re both on the same page.”

 

“No,” Felicity pouts. Her chest tightens as she considers that they’ve never really discussed where things are going for them before. “Do you think he doesn’t think we’re long-term serious?”

 

“Hey, I think Oliver is crazy about you,” Sara reassures her, trying to stave off the anxious spiral she can probably already see Felicity barrelling towards. “But, I also know he’s never really been good at serious relationships. Not that he couldn’t be, or doesn’t see this as one. I can just understand his hesitation.”

 

“I can’t,” Amaya says, frowning. “I’ve been keeping things at Nate’s place for a while now.”

 

“Different people move at different paces,” Sara shrugs. She turns her attention back to Felicity. “Is that all he said? Just the stuff about a big step and rushing things?”

 

“No,” Felicity admits, picking at the cardboard protector on her coffee cup. “He said we could talk about it later.”

 

“I know this is probably not something Oliver would ever want to admit,” Sara says. “But I think he’s scared.”

 

“Of what?” Felicity asks. “Me?”

 

“No, well, maybe sort of,” Sara shrugs. “Probably of getting into things too deeply, too quickly and then losing you. Of screwing things up, because he doesn’t really know what he’s doing. Besides,” she adds with a shrug, averting her eyes. “Maybe you should be careful about getting in too deep.”

 

“What does that mean?” Felicity frowns.

 

“Nothing,” she insists. “Just that you’re both new to this, so, you know, slow might be good.”

 

Felicity shrugs one shoulder, sulking a little because she knows Sara is probably right to some extent. Not necessarily about going too fast, but she doesn’t want Oliver to be afraid of moving forward with her just because it’s new. It’s new for her, too, and of course she’s terrified of losing him but…

 

“Sounds like you need to talk to him,” Zari points out, astutely, offering Felicity a sympathetic look.

 

“Yeah,” she admits, nodding. And then she plasters on a smile and squares her shoulders, giving Amaya her full attention. “Anyway, doesn’t somebody have a 5k to run?”

 

Amaya finishes her stretches and the rest of them move to the bleachers. Zari times Amaya while they cheer her on each time she passes by their bleachers. Zari nudges Felicity gently.

 

“Just talk to him,” she says quietly, offering her an encouraging smile. “You’ll feel better, either way.”

 

When he gets home, Oliver’s the one who brings up the offer of a drawer, suggesting they talk about it. He doesn’t necessarily say exactly what Sara had suggested, but it’s close enough. And he says he wants things to be serious and long-term between them, which at least relieves some of Felicity’s fears.

 

After a week, Felicity starts to realize she’s accumulating piles of Oliver’s things. She clears out space for him in her top drawer.

 

\---

 

The weather turns warm again for about a week and then, suddenly, it’s just hot and dry. Felicity realizes Oliver’s never lived through a Nevada summer. He trades his sweaters for t-shirts or, quite often, no shirt at all. She’s not complaining.

 

He starts spending his free time working on the car he’d bought when he first moved to town. The auto shop had called it a lemon, but Oliver is convinced it can be salvaged. Felicity isn’t sure he has enough car knowledge to make that judgement, but she also thinks he’s determined to learn to do the things his money used to do for him. She also thinks spending the winter driving his bike around made him realize he needed to invest in something with doors and windows.

 

The car is an eyesore, up on a jack in the alley behind his second floor apartment. She thinks it annoys the owner of the hardware store beneath him, but Oliver is charming and Felicity thinks the owner and his husband are both taken with him. She can’t blame them.

 

“Hey,” she calls as she comes up on him one day after a meeting about her start up. The cafes downtown have started serving their warm-weather menus, which usually means soda water flavored with syrups and fruit-infused lemonades, and she’s brought a drink for each of them.

 

He straightens up where he’s bent over the hood of the car. There’s grease staining his fingers and sweat making the lines of his abdomen shine and, fuck. She’s thirstier for more than just the raspberry lemonade in her hand.

 

“Hey,” he greets, wiping his fingers on a dirty rag before he takes the italian soda she offers him. He ducks down, pressing a kiss to her mouth. “Thank you.”

 

She hums in response, nodding as she presses up on her toes to meet his mouth again, prolongs the kiss just a bit.

 

“How’s it coming along?” She asks, glancing past him to the exposed insides of the car. This is all a little outside of her wheelhouse, too. Newer cars basically run like computers and she could plug her tablet in and figure out what’s wrong with it and what needs to be done to fix it. But this car? All analog. So, Felicity is no help in this instance.

 

“Not great,” he admits, frowning at he leans back against the car. “It might be time to admit defeat.”

 

“I thought you could get it running,” she prompts, wanting to encourage him. Sure, she knows nothing about cars, but she also knows Oliver doesn’t take defeat easily. “What changed?”

 

“It needs a lot of stuff,” he sighs, running his free hand over his face in frustration. “And, you know, money isn’t a problem, so whatever. But, I guess they don’t make a camshaft sensor that’s compatible with this model anymore.”

 

“Did you check-”

 

“Online, yeah,” he nods, giving her a rueful smile for the effort. “I checked with the autoshop and I looked in the hardware store. It doesn’t seem like the one I need exists anymore.”

 

Felicity frowns, considering the car behind him as he takes long drinks from his soda to combat the heat. She’s sure he isn’t staying appropriately hydrated. He’s spent every spare minute, between work and being with her, working on this car. She doesn’t want him to have to just give up.

 

“Let me go look,” she suggests, shoving her lemonade into his free hand. He stares at her in confusion as she turns and heads down the alley, towards the entrance to the hardware store. She spins as she walks, calling back to him, “Fresh eyes, right?”

 

Standing in front of the store, away from the windows but also off where Oliver definitely can’t see her from the alley, she pulls out her phone and googles the type of part he needs for his specific model.

 

“Okay,” she nods to herself, shoving her phone into her jeans pocket and holding her hand out, palm up. She squeezes her eyes shut, picturing the exact part Oliver needs, and points at her open palm with her other hand. A heavy, cold weight settles in her palm suddenly and she opens her eyes. The camshaft sensor sits in her palm and she gives a quiet whoop of excitement.

 

She’s been using her magic more lately, she knows. Using it to do things more efficiently than the normal way, trying to save herself or Oliver some time so they can spend more of it together. Or to just generally make things easier for herself. It’s been a while since she’d used it with such abandon, but she can tell the difference in the way her magic settles inside of her, too. Like it’s happy to be used.

 

She gives it a few more minutes before she heads back down the alley.

 

“How did you find this?” Oliver asks, taking the part from her and examining it.

 

“Like I said,” she shrugs. “You just needed a fresh pair of eyes.”

 

“No,” he says, shaking his head. “I needed you.”

 

Felicity swells with pride as he kisses her on the apple of her cheek and gets back to work.

 

\---

 

Tommy comes back for a visit and Felicity begins realize that him and Sara are a bad combination. They end up at the bar Sara is working at – because when you’re almost startling efficient at everything you try, but have no official qualifications for anything, you try a little bit of it all – and Felicity has no idea what bartender etiquette is, but she doubts the way Sara is letting Tommy buy her shots is exactly above board.

 

Still, she’s barely showing more than a buzz and doesn’t seem to be having any trouble tending to the rest of the customers. So, Felicity doesn’t really care. 

 

They’re seated at the corner of the bar towards the door. Zari’s there, because apparently she and Tommy really hit off, which is still just so very confusing to Felicity. They’ve been playing those stupid in-chat games on their phones together from afar for months.

 

“So, Felicity,” Tommy says suddenly, in between rounds of drinks and after Sara has disappeared to tend to another customer. He leans forward, resting his elbow on the bar, and places his chin on his hand with a very serious look on his face. She can’t help but smirk as she mimics the gesture.

 

“So, Tommy,” she echoes.

 

“What exactly are your intentions with my best friend?” He asks and Felicity nearly chokes on her laugh, surprised by the question.

 

“My  _ intentions _ ?” She teases, sitting up and pressing a hand to her mouth to contain her giggles. Oliver groans next to her.

 

“And you’re cut off,” Zari says, reaching in front of Tommy to take his short tumblr of whiskey away from him. She hides it out his reach next to her soda.

 

“What?” He asks, incredulously, but there’s laughter in his eyes and Felicity figures his interest is more in making Oliver as uncomfortable as possible. “I haven’t been around to do the whole vetting process, so we have to get through it now.”

 

“How about we get through it never?” Oliver asks, staring daggers at Tommy. Felicity squeezes his thigh under the bartop, smirking at him, and he shakes his head.

 

“Hey, buddy, I’m just trying to look out for you,” Tommy insists, throwing his hands up in defense. He reaches around Zari, having to lift up off of his stool to reach his drink. “I have to make sure her intentions are nothing but pure.”

 

“Oh, we’re way past that,” Felicity says, grinning wickedly. It earns her a small pinch to her side from Oliver, gentle and playful. They’re both buzzed and touchy and if they weren’t with friends she would already have pulled him out of the bar and the few blocks over to his apartment.

 

Tommy lets out a startled, choked sound, like he hadn’t expected her response and Felicity feels a little smug at having bested him. He looks like he’s going to say something else, leaning across the bar, but a crash down the bar pulls their attention.

 

Sara is standing a little ways back from the edge of the bar, glaring daggers at a man across from her. Felicity pushes up off her stool to see better. At Sara’s feet, there’s a mess of glass and spilled liquid and the man down the bar is grinning smugly at her. Felicity has no doubt he created the mess and even less that he’d done it specifically to target Sara.

 

And then he says it.

 

“Sorry about that,” he says in a voice like wide-grain sandpaper that makes Felicity instantly dislike him. “Better clean it up, witch-bitch.”

 

The bar is almost entirely quiet, only the people at the tables away from it are still chatting, oblivious to the tension building at the front of the room. Felicity is off of her stool before she can think better of it, recognizing the look on Sara’s face as she rounds the bar. She puts herself between Sara and the man, the soles of her boots crunching on the pieces of glass beneath her.

 

“Don’t do it,” she hisses. “Not here. He’s not worth it.”

 

Sara’s jaw works and Felicity looks down, seeing her hand flexing. She locks her fingers around Sara’s wrist and glares at her.

 

“I’m serious,” she says.

 

“Better listen to your witch-bitch friend,” the guy behind her says, chortling at his own presumed cleverness. Felicity doesn’t even dignify the words with a dirty look, focusing on keeping Sara’s temper at bay. She glances down the bar to find Zari, a similar fire in her eyes, and shoots her a look to say the same thing she’s told Sara. She can’t hold them both back.

 

As it turns out, it’s not the witches in the bar she needed to worry about. She hears the man behind her give a shout.

 

“Hey! What the fuck do you think-”

 

And then the sickening sound of a blow landing, hard, against his jaw. She spins, startled to find Oliver standing over the man. Tommy is rushing up behind him as the man scurries to his feet, taking a sloppy blow at Oliver. He sidesteps the swing and counters it with a punch to the man’s ribs. Tommy steps up and Felicity thinks he might be trying to break it up, but then one of the guy’s friends takes a swing at him and catches him in the shoulder. He’s not as agile as Oliver seems to be, but he throws a punch back that knocks the other guy into the man behind him.

 

And then it’s just chaos.

 

Felicity looks back to Sara, worried she’ll have to hold her back from a physical fight now instead, but she seems just as panicked. She drops Sara’s wrist and they take off for the end of the bar, rounding it to reach Zari.

 

“What the fuck do we do?” Zari asks over the din of the bar. Shouting has coupled with the sound from the stereo and the fight is getting out of hand, people from the tables getting caught up in it. Felicity can see Oliver and Tommy somewhere in the middle of it all.

 

“Call the cops?” Felicity aks.

 

“No way,” Sara says, shaking her head. “A bar fight that involves us? That’ll just get Oliver and Tommy a night in lock up and a new reason for them to keep an eye on us.”

 

“Okay, then, what?” Zari barks.

 

Felicity watches the chaos in front of her. There doesn’t seem to be any sort of calculation to the movement, everyone is drunk and looking for the closest person to hit. There’s an opening, just for a moment, where she can see Oliver holding his own. She lets out a grown of frustration.

 

“God dammit,” she growls. “Follow my lead.”

 

Then, she’s wading into the mess of bodies, hoping not to take a set of knuckles to the jaw or the gut. Subtly, she reaches out and brushes the arm of the person in front of her, her fingers glowing for just a moment. They slow, stagger, and then drop to the floor, asleep. Sara and Zari catch on and they create themselves a path to the boys as quickly as they can, without drawing attention.

 

Felicity reaches Oliver first and grabs his wrist. He swings around, ready for the next attacker, but halts when he realizes it’s her. There’s a cut on his temple and his knuckles are raw and bruised. His eyes glaze for a moment and she drops his wrist, feeling bad using her magic on him, even fleetingly. The glow in her fingers fades.

 

“We need to go,” she shouts. “Now!”

 

Oliver almost seems like he wants to argue, submit further to the chaos he’s helped foster, but he nods and grabs her hand. He shoves a path back out of the fray and they meet Zari and Sara at the door, where they’re supporting Tommy. He has a bad looking cut on his lip and there’s already a bruise forming over his eye. He sags against Sara. Felicity figures he isn’t much of a fighter.

 

“Let’s go,” Zari says and they rush out of the door, into the cool night air. There’s a police siren in the distance and Felicity figures someone smarter than them actually did call the cops. Sara drags Tommy in the direction of his hotel, Zari following after, assuring Felicity and Oliver they’ve got him.

 

Silently, Felicity leads Oliver to the next block before she calls for a car to take them to her house.

 

\---

 

“That was so incredibly stupid,” she says once they’re finally crossing the threshold of her front door. Oliver grunts behind her, eloquently, and pushes the door shut. She hears the lock slide into place. “I cannot believe you acted like that!”

 

“‘Acted like that?’” He echoes with an angry chuckle that makes her stomach turn. “That motherfu-”

 

“It doesn’t matter!” She shouts, throwing her hands up and spinning around to face him in the entryway. “It doesn’t matter  _ what _ he did, you threw the first punch. You’re lucky you’re not sitting in a holding cell right now!”

 

Frustrated, she huffs out a breath and storms away from him into the kitchen. She moves around the space, stewing as she gathers things. Under the sink, she keeps a small first aid kit. She grabs the hand towel off the stove and wraps it around a bag of frozen vegetables from the freezer. Oliver hovers at the door. Neither of them says anything.

 

“Sit down,” she instructs, pulling out a chair for him at the kitchen table and angling it towards herself. Oliver does as she says. The damage to his face isn’t as bad as it could have been if he weren’t such a good fighter. Which is a whole new question in and of itself. She’s never seen him do anything like that.

 

“Here,” she says, handing him the towel-wrapped broccoli. “Your jaw is bruising.”

 

He takes it and presses it to his jaw, not even flinching as the cold hits the tender flesh. She studies his hands for a moment and the damage to his knuckles is worse on his dominant side. Stepping away from him, she digs through one of the drawers until she finds what she’s looking for.

 

“Hold this in your fist,” she says, holding the smooth cut of rose quartz out to him. Oliver looks down at the pink crystal and then up at her, raising an eyebrow in confusion – or concern that she’s lost her mind. “Just take it, alright? It’ll help the swelling.”

 

He switches the hand holding the towel and grips the crystal gingerly in his fist. Felicity breaks open the first aid kit and digs around for an alcohol wipe.

 

“You can’t just do things like this,” she says, frowning at him as she cleans the wound opened at his temple. The skin is swelling and broken, but it doesn’t seem to actually be bleeding.

 

“He can’t talk to you like that!” Oliver argues, hissing when he tightens his fingers around the crystal too tightly. “Or Sara. It’s not okay!”

 

“That’s not an excuse to start a brawl, Oliver,” she admonishes. He looks like he’s going to interrupt, but she doesn’t let him. “No, hey. You don’t understand the politics around here, okay? You can’t just,” she stops, squeezes her eyes shut and takes a deep breath. “Those kinds of people, it’s best just to ignore them. And, doing things like this, it’s only going to complicate things.”

 

“Complicate how?” He presses.

 

“It- I can’t explain it, okay?” She huffs. “You just, you can’t run around beating up anyone who looks at me the wrong way. It’s not sustainable and, what’s more, I don’t even know why you would act like this! I’ve never-”

 

“I love you.”

 

She freezes. “What?”

 

“I love you, Felicity,” he repeats, a little softer this time.

 

She drops her gaze, focusing on his bruised knuckles for a moment.

 

“Don’t just say it just ‘cause I’m mad at you,” she grumbles.

 

“I’m not,” he insists. “But that’s why I did it, alright? I am crazy in love with you and, tonight, it made me act irrationally. I’m not saying it’s an excuse, but that’s why I did it. I wasn’t just going to let some asshole in some bar, or  _ anyone, _ hurt you.”

 

She just stares at him for a long moment.

 

“Okay?” He asks, quietly.

 

“Okay,” she says and, he’s right, it’s not an excuse. She’s still mad at him – though it’s downgrading to annoyance as she tends to his wounds. She pouts and says, “I love you, too, dummy.”

 

\---

 

Knowing that Oliver loves her doesn’t necessarily change things, but it kind of does. Kisses are sweeter, touches make her skin tingle. She thinks it’s kind of like being in a new relationship, but on a whole new level. Felicity already knew she was in love with him, even if she’d been afraid to say it, but Oliver’s admission has shifted their worlds.

 

She’s been known to be resentful of change, but this one? She doesn’t mind it.

 

Tommy sticks around for a while – crashing at Sara’s in a similar way to how Oliver had when he’d first shown up – and, miraculously, no one ever fingers their little group for starting the bar fight. His injuries from the fight were significantly worse than Oliver’s, but they seem to heal just as quickly and Felicity doesn’t doubt Sara played a part in that.

 

Felicity and Oliver have a serious conversation about the fight and Oliver admits there are things he’s still trying to be better about, but promises not to do something like it again. It’s a less than ideal bump in the road, just because it reminds Felicity that there are things she still doesn’t know about him, things he isn’t ready to tell her yet.

 

But some nights her fingers glow just from him touching her and her magic vibrates beneath her skin when he fucks her. So, she figures, when it comes to keeping secrets, she has to be able to give him a little leeway.

 

Oliver’s bosses, John and Lyla, invite them over for dinner. They live in the next town over, where they also run their home security business, and Oliver picks up a bottle of wine on the way there. Felicity feels, inexplicably, nervous about the whole thing. They’ve gone on double dates before, but this feels different than going to a bar with Sara and Nyssa or getting dinner with Amaya and Nate. John and Lyla are married, they have two kids. Somehow that feels more significant.

 

Not to mention, as much as she’s heard about them, Felicity’s never met the pair before. Oliver must tell her a half dozen times between getting dressed and getting to their front door to stop freaking out. Easy for him to say, all charm and brooding.

 

“Hey,” he says gently, turning to her as they wait for someone to answer the door. He finds her hand with his and laces their fingers together, squeezing. “They’re gonna love you.”

 

He says it like it’s obvious and her stomach still flutters with nerves, but for a second it makes her feel better.

 

When John Diggle opens the door in a relaxed henley with a dish towel tossed over his shoulder and an easy grin, he laughs and says, “Come on in, come on in. We’re running a little bit behind with dinner.”

 

John shakes Oliver’s hand in that way that’s more like clasping each other’s forearms and then Oliver introduces him to Felicity. He shakes her hand more formally, with a gentle but firm grasp, and his smile makes the corner of his eyes crinkle.

 

She immediately likes him.

 

Who Felicity assumes must be Lyla comes rushing out of a room down the hallway and Felicity figures that must be the kitchen. There’s a small girl on her hip who hides her face as soon as she spots strangers in the hallway.

 

“Johnny, there’s something smoking,” she says in a rush and John turns tail and heads back the way she had come. With a heavy sigh, Lyla turns and offers them a weary smile. “Sorry for the chaos. Our babysitter cancelled, so we’ve been a little behind schedule all day.”

 

“It’s no problem,” Oliver assures her. “Do you need any help?”

 

“No, please,” she insists, shaking her head with a chuckle. “We’re used to a little chaos around here.”

 

Oliver gives her the gift-wrapped wine and introduces her to Felicity, who Lyla offers a warm half-hug that makes the little girl on her side squirm and duck further into hiding. Lyla introduces her as Sara and Felicity holds her tongue, even as she and Oliver share a quiet look.

 

“I’ve heard so much about you both, it feels like I already know you,” Felicity says, laughing a little. 

 

“ _ Really _ ?” Lyla asks, giving Oliver a look and Felicity almost regrets making the comment, knowing it’s going to lead to some teasing, but Lyla gives her a subtle wink and Oliver groans and, honestly, she thinks it’ll be fine. “Well, that’s interesting because Oliver, here, is weirdly private and tells us almost nothing.”

 

“I’m a private person,” Oliver grumbles and Felicity pouts up at him teasingly. It had taken her a long time after they’d met each other to pull personal information from him. She’s hardly surprised that he doesn’t talk about her much at work. But, still, she’s not going to miss an opportunity to poke fun at him for it.

 

“You don’t talk about me?” She pouts, pressing her hand to her heart. “That hurts.”

 

Oliver shakes his head at her, but he’s fighting a smile.

 

“Don’t encourage her,” he admonishes.

 

“Alright, well, let’s get out of the doorway, yeah?” Lyla suggests, bouncing Sara a little bit. “J.J. is in the living room, most likely avoiding having to meet new people. You two leave your shoes here and we’ll see if John needs any help.” She starts to turn away and then looks back to whisper, conspiratorially, “Or maybe we’ll just open the wine and get to know Felicity.”

 

Oliver gives a quiet sigh as Lyla walks away from them down the hallway, but he leans down as Felicity is toeing out of her heels to whisper, “What did I tell you?”

 

She shakes her head, knocking his chest with her shoulder.

 

“You don’t have to say ‘I told you so’,” she says, shooting him a look as she nudges her heels off to the side and walks away from him. Oliver laughs behind her.

 

“You say it to me all the time!”

 

\---

 

Sitting in the kitchen, John and Lyla refuse to let them help finish up dinner, but Felicity watches as the preparation of the food becomes a joint effort between the couple. It’s nice and she’s slightly envious, but only because she’s burnt enough food that Oliver refuses to let her help with any cooking. Lyla and John move around each other seamlessly.

 

Not to mention, dinner is delicious. Sara takes to Felicity when she helps feed her while Lyla chasticises John Jr, their older child, for refusing to touch the asparagus on his plate. They try to apologize a handful of times, but Felicity almost enjoys the chaos. She’d been an only child and it was just her and her mother for most of her life. Something about dinner at the Diggle-Michaels feels like family.

 

After dinner, John and J.J. try to teach Oliver how to play Halo, but Felicity thinks the odds are a little unfairly stacked against him. J.J. had invited her to play one game and decided she was too good and must be cheating, so she’s been barred from playing.

 

Lyla comes back from putting Sara down for bed and John calls last game for J.J. Oliver gives a huff and Felicity tries not to be so charmed by his focus as he attempts to prove himself to the seven-year-old.

 

Lyla comes and sits down on the couch with Felicity, pulling her feet up underneath herself as she cradles a glass of red wine in her hand. Their living room is joined with a sitting room, only an arch separating the spaces, but their side of the room is quieter than the side where the boys play. There’s some light trash talk between the Diggle men, but most of it is aimed at Oliver.

 

“So, Felicity,” Lyla says quietly and she looks over at her, eyebrows raised. “Does Oliver know?”

 

Felicity frowns. “Know?”

 

“Yeah,” Lyla nods. Suddenly she lifts her free hand and wiggles her fingers at Felicity. “ _ Know _ .” She drops her voice a little more and adds, “About your magic.”

 

Felicity lets out a laugh that’s probably too loud and shrill to be anything other than painfully nervous.

 

“I don’t know what you mean,” she says, clearing her throat and taking a drink from her own wine. Her chest has gone tight and it takes her an extra moment to swallow the bitter drink.

 

Lyla narrows her eyes, staring her down for a moment. Felicity is willing to admit she’d overlooked Nora’s magic, but nothing about Lyla or John has tipped her off. Still, her stomach feels like it’s tumbling inside of an industrial-sized centrifuge.

 

Lyla shifts suddenly, tucking her legs in a little tighter and leaning towards Felicity. She lowers her voice even further.

 

“Do you want to know a secret?” She asks and Felicity is so tense it takes a concentrated effort just to nod warily. “John has the Sense.”

 

“The what?” Felicity frowns.

 

Lyla rolls her eyes and Felicity thinks maybe it seems like she’s still feigning ignorance, but in this case she will readily admit she has no idea what they’re talking about anymore.

 

“It means, going back generations, his family has been able to sniff out witches,” she explains. “A lot of people used to pretend to have the Sense, so they could accuse whoever they wanted. A large component of the witch trials, but we all know the trials weren’t catching  _ actual _ witches. Anyway, the point is, John can sense magic. And, Oliver? He  _ reeks _ of it.”

 

“Okay,” Felicity says slowly, drawing the word out and hoping she doesn’t look too much like a deer caught in headlights. Her mother had told her stories, passed down by generations, of the trials their kin have faced. But she wonders if even Donna knows the sense for witches people claimed to have is real.

 

“John knew it wasn’t Oliver,” Lyla concludes. “So, that means it must be you. Or he’s cheating on you with a witch.”

 

She says it deadpan, but Felicity knows it’s a callout. Forcing her to admit to her powers. Still, she keeps her mouth shut, forcing down another gulp of wine. Maybe she could grab Oliver’s hand and just start running and never stop.

 

“Relax,” Lyla says, offering her a gentle smile. “It’s not like we’re gonna hurt you. I just figured you’d know more about the Sense than this.”

 

“I think it’s always kind of been a myth for us,” she admits finally, once she feels relatively confident Lyla and John don’t mean her any harm. “Like, a boogeyman you tell your daughters to make them careful with their power.”

 

“Well, it’s real,” Lyla nods. “But it’s no boogeyman. It’s not the sixteen hundreds and we’re not that religious.”

 

Felicity lets out a quiet laugh.

 

“So, does he know?” She asks again and Felicity shakes her head no, chewing on the corner of her lip. She looks across the room to where Oliver is standing far too close to the TV and really, really trying his best to beat the seven-year-old next to him. Lyla pulls her focus again, prompting, “Do you love him?”

 

The smile that pulls at Felicity’s mouth is entirely involuntary, but she doesn’t bother fighting it.

 

“Yeah,” she says softly.

 

“Then, you should tell him,” Lyla says, patting Felicity’s knee gently before slipping her feet back to the floor and pushing up off the couch. She joins the men, reminding them of the bedtime, and earns groans from both J.J. and Oliver.

 

\---

 

The summer months pass by them in a flurry of uneventful domesticity, colored by the heat that’s settled over the city. Things seem to move slowly, lazily in the dry weather. Felicity doesn’t complain when it leads to most of her free time in various states of undress with Oliver. It’s almost too hot to even touch each other most days, but he lets her rest her head on his abdomen as he tells her stories about his family.

 

Tommy is in and out of their lives in the way only a lifelong best friend can be. He’ll pop in for a visit and cause a manageable amount of chaos before he leaves again. Oliver’s always happy when he shows up, but Felicity thinks he’s a little happy when he leaves too, bringing parts of Oliver’s past with him and taking them when he goes.

 

They spend more time with John and Lyla, who Felicity is discovering she really likes. Occasionally, they agree to babysit and, maybe, that should be a scary experience for them as a couple, but it’s fine. Oliver is getting better at all of the video games J.J. likes most.

 

Amaya sets the city-wide record for the 10k and they throw her a party to celebrate. Sara prods at her, teasingly, to find out if she’d used some kind of spell to keep her from passing out in the heat. Amaya insists it’s all just training and good hydration. Felicity figures raw talent and genetics have to play some part.

 

City Council allocates funding for the city to throw a Halloween festival in October and it’s the buzz of the town for the months leading up to it. It seems like everyone wants to have a part in it. Felicity just plans to enjoy the cooling weather and eat too much fried dough. 

 

Against her advice, Sara decides to set up a table and do tarot card readings for people. She’s been practicing for a while, which is good considering she’d just picked up a deck of cards and decided she could do it. (“I’m a witch, Felicity. How hard could it be?”)

 

They’re sitting outside of the cafe, enjoying the cool weather. Felicity’s even wearing a light jacket and not absolutely sweltering in it. Zari has her laptop open on the table and they know better by now than to ask what she’s working on. Unable to hold Zari’s attention, Sara is trying to do a tarot reading for Felicity.

 

“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” Felicity asks, apprehensively, watching Sara slowly set three cards from the stack in between them on the table out in front of her.

 

“Sh,” Sara admonishes. “Don’t break my concentration.”

 

Felicity rolls her eyes, annoyed at being shushed, but lets Sara do her thing. She rests her elbow on the table and sets her chin in her hand, zoning out a little as Sara flips each card over one by one. There’s a book on tarot spreads hidden in her lap that she consults as she flips each one over. Felicity is beginning to think it’s a bit more complicated than she’d originally assumed.

 

The three cards mean nothing to Felicity. On the first, one illustrated character holds a golden chalice filled with flowers out to another character. There’s a roman numeral at the top and more cups surrounding their feet. The second is a golden crown impaled at the top of a sword and Felicity can’t tell if that’s a good or bad sign. On the third, an illustrated character sits on a large throne, the word JUSTICE scribed at the bottom in block letters.

 

“Ah, yes,” Sara says, pretending she just knows the answers these cards hold rather than having read it from the book Felicity had ordered her off the internet. She declares, mystically, “A soulmate spread.”

 

Zari lets out a snort that Sara ignores.

 

“Soulmate spread?” Felicity frowns. “Does that mean, like, I’m gonna meet my soulmate? Or that I’ve already met them?”

 

She stares down at the cards nervously, not sure which option she likes. This is why she doesn’t mess around with divination. No part of her anxiety can handle knowing some vague future prediction about herself. Or Oliver. Not that she’s saying…

 

“Uh,” Sara says, staring down at the cards, then the book in her lap. Zari laughs.

 

“Are you asking if Oliver is your soulmate?” She asks, not unkindly, as she pulls her attention from her computer. Her sudden interest in the conversation does not make Felicity feel better.

 

“Wait,” Sara says, frowning as her attention shifts from the book in her lap to Felicity. “Are you?”

 

“No,” Felicity says, defensively. She sighs, shrugging, “I’m not saying he  _ is _ . I’m just, you know, wondering what the expected longevity of our relationship is.”

 

Zari’s eyes narrow. “Why?”

 

Felicity bites down on her lower lip, wishing she’d kept her mouth shut. But she’s been thinking pretty much non-stop about what Lyla said about telling Oliver about her magic. It’s just, she hasn’t told anyone about her magic in a very long time. None of her recent romantic entanglements before him knew. So, it feels like a big step. Bigger than sex or I love you or a drawer. And, if things don’t last or, worse, if it changes things, well. That’s scary.

 

But if she could talk to anyone about it, it would be Sara and Zari. She wishes Amaya was here, too, wonders if she’s told Nate.

 

“I’ve been thinking about telling him about my magic,” she admits, trying to say it casually. But her eyes are focused on the chipping nail polish on her index finger and her anxiety bubbles in her chest. “Maybe. I don’t know.”

 

“I didn’t know you two were that serious,” Sara says, still frowning. Her reaction makes Felicity’s chest tight. Of all the people she’d expect to jump at the idea of Felicity owning her magic and telling Oliver about it, Sara would pretty much be at the top of the list.

 

“They’ve been together a while,” Zari says, frowning now, too. It’s at Sara, though, and Felicity knows her strange reaction to the news isn’t just in her imagination.

 

“Yeah, no, I know,” Sara nods. She turns to Felicity. “But, you like him that much?”

 

“I- yeah,” Felicity shrugs. “I mean, I’m in love with him.”

 

“Well, I just mean, he used to be kind of-”

 

“I know,” Felicity says pointedly, cutting her off. “Oliver’s told me about how awful he was to your sister and he told me what he’s been through. He’s a different person now. I don’t understand why you’re suddenly bringing this up.”

 

“Oh, God,” Sara groans, burying her face in her hands suddenly. “Oh, no. I didn’t realize- I mean, I guess I haven’t been paying enough attention. I’ve been so caught up with Nyssa and I had no idea-”

 

“Sara,” Zari says, sitting up straight and Felicity’s glad Zari still has her voice, because terror is filling her whole body at Sara’s reaction. “What did you do?”

 

A million terrible, awful things fly through Felicity’s mind at the question. Most of them completely irrational, completely opposite the type of people she knows both Sara and Oliver to be. But she can’t help it and the longer Sara’s silence drags on, the worse it gets.

 

“Sara,” Zari tries again, firmer this time and she must be able to sense Felicity’s spiral, because she shoots her a concerned look.

 

“I just wanted to help,” Sara says finally, in a rush. “I wanted you to lighten up and just have some fun, okay? And I thought, you know, if you met someone, that it might help! And, it was so long ago, I almost forgot about it but, now. God, I didn’t know you were gonna fall in love with him, too.”

 

“What are you talking about?” Felicity asks, unable to hold the words in.

 

“I did a love spell for you,” Sara admits, slowly. “Almost a year ago. Right before Oliver just happened to move to town.”

 

“You didn’t,” Zari sighs.

 

“I didn’t think it would be a big deal!” Sara insists. Felicity fingers have gone cold. “And, it’s not like I specifically put it on Oliver. We don’t even know if–”

 

“It’s him,” Felicity says quietly, her dread turning to pain, to anger.

 

“Felicity, you can’t know,” Zari tries, but she’s shaking her head in response because she  _ knows _ .

 

His words from months ago come back and she just knows. He’d said it himself. Crazy in love with her, acting irrationally because of it. The way her magic reacts to him isn’t  _ normal _ . Maybe this whole time it’s been trying to warn her, trying to protect her. God, if she were a better witch, if she paid more attention, she might have noticed. If she weren’t so in love with him.

 

“I can’t believe you did this, Sara,” she says quietly, her anger silent and calm. It burns in her chest, white and hot, and she knows she’s going to cry. Cry over the frustration and loss of control over her own life. Cry because, dammit, she  _ loves _ him. How can she love something that isn’t even real?

 

“I had no idea it would be like this,” Sara insists. “I thought it would wear off, you know, they aren’t supposed to last this long once you’ve actually been together. It was just supposed to be a short thing, but then Oliver stuck around and I figured it would last a little longer and then it’d fade and it’d be fine but–”

 

“Don’t justify it,” Felicity bites. “You can’t just fuck around with other people’s lives like this! This is what I’m talking about, creating chaos to keep yourself entertained. It’s bad, Sara. It’s bad magic!”

 

“Hey, come on,” Zari says, trying to mediate. Felicity knows the words are unfair, but this isn’t starting a fight or making a coffee machine explode. This is her life and Sara’s turned it into her personal playground. She’d said it herself, she’d gotten bored and focused on something new and just forgotten.

 

She pushes out of her chair and the metal feet scrape across the concrete, giving a terrible sound.

 

“I wasn’t trying to hurt you,” Sara insists and Felicity can tell that, much like herself, Sara is holding back tears. “I’m so sorry, please. We can fix it, okay?”

 

“You can’t fix this,” Felicity says, coldly. Her chair rattles against the concrete, her magic swelling with her anger even as she keeps her hands to herself. “Magic can’t solve everything. You have to learn that one day. I don’t know how to forgive you for this.”

 

“Felicity, please,” Sara pleads. But Felicity’s anger is turning to pain and grief and if she stands here any longer she’s going to lose it on the street. And she’s not going to do that.

 

So she turns tail and she runs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Final part will be up on Halloween! (Also, don't be too hard on Sara.)


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm honestly a little shook I managed to get this finished in the amount of chapters I said and in the time frame I promised. It's 12:23am on Oct. 31 and I literally just finished editing this final chapter. I'm so tired.
> 
> But I hope you all like it!! This fic had been in the works for basically a year in an idea phase and I'm so glad I finally got to sit down and put it together and share it! Happy Halloween, babes!!

**V.**

 

Her phone buzzes repeatedly and after an hour, she turns it off all together. She doesn’t want to hear Sara’s apologies. She doesn’t want Zari to talk her off the ledge. She just wants to be left alone, snuggled up on her couch.

 

Mostly, she doesn’t want to see the texts from Oliver.

 

The first had been hidden within a flurry of notifications from her friends. Just a simple suggestion for dinner tonight. Nothing out of the ordinary, as they usually have dinner together and Oliver wanted to suggest going out. Any other night, she might have just said sure and let him choose the place. Tonight, she can’t even bear to see his name across her screen.

 

He’d waited the appropriate amount of time – not expecting her to text back right away if she’s still with her friends, but knowing she’s never very far from her phone – before sending a second one. And then trying to call. Which is when Felicity turned her phone off.

 

She’d tried to curl up in her bed, but the pillows smell of him and his watch sits, forgotten, on the dresser from this morning. Instead, she ends up on the couch, curled in a throw she’d found shoved in the back of her closet, left behind by her grandmother. It smells musty and stale, but it definitely doesn’t smell like Oliver.

 

It only takes him another hour to knock on her door. She considers not answering, but she knows he’ll be concerned. She rarely keeps her phone turned off and he could do something irrational, like break in.

 

“Oh,” he says when she pulls the door open, still wrapped in the throw blanket. He breathes out a sigh of relief. “Hey, sorry, I was worried. Your phone was sending me straight to voicemail and I didn’t know if-”

 

“I’m fine,” she says, her voice harder than she means for it to be, but it’s the only way to keep herself from crying. This will all be so much harder if she starts crying.

 

“Okay,” Oliver frowns. “Are you sure? Because you don’t look fine.”

 

She nods, swallowing the lump in her throat and avoiding his gaze. He’s still in his work clothes, dressed up in a too-expensive suit from the things he’d brought with him from Starling. It’s tailored perfectly to him and she thinks it’s unfair he should look so beautiful and disheveled while she feels like something is turning putrid and rotten inside of her chest.

 

She stands with an arm still on the door, very clearly blocking him from coming inside. It’s stupid. He’s rarely had to ask permission before. They were really only an official step or two away from living together. Felicity sees the way he takes in her stance, realizes that whatever is wrong isn’t just about her.

 

“What’s going on?” He asks softly and she wishes he wouldn’t. His tie is crooked at his throat, begging for her fingers to come up, straighten it, drag down his chest. Instead, she just stares at it.

 

“I can’t do this anymore,” she all but whispers, the words dragging off of her tongue with jagged edges. She imagines them sharp and dangerous, tainted with her blood as they find home in his chest.

 

“Do what?” He asks. She risks a glance up at his face, finds the familiar confused pinch to his brow too much to bear. Back to his tie. It’s the burgundy one. She loves that tie.

 

Like a masochist, she remembers the night she’d tied it around his eyes and asked him to trust her. He’d barely taken any convincing as she’d dragged her hands over his naked form, palms lit up bright enough to illuminate the dark room around them. He’d shivered under the touch of her magic, kissed her like he couldn’t contain himself.

 

Of course he couldn’t contain himself against the magic already affecting him. She almost lets out a rueful laugh. She would, if it were even remotely funny.

 

So, the tie isn’t exactly a safe place either. But if she watches his face, if she has to be brave and stare him in the eye while she breaks both of their hearts, then she’s not going to be able to do it. He’ll be fine, she tells herself. The heartbreak will break the spell.

 

It’s her own heart that might not recover.

 

“Why do you love me?” She asks, suddenly. In her peripheral, Oliver shakes his head.

 

“What?” He asks, confused by the shift. Confused by the whole conversation, if she had to guess.

 

She squeezes her eyes shut, wishing she’d thought to stick around long enough to find out exactly what kind of love spell Sara used. It could give him answers to her question. It would have to be able to convince him he loves things about her enough to love her. She tries something else.

 

“Why did you move here?” She asks, instead. “You had a whole life in Starling. Why pick up and move  _ here _ ?”

 

“I told you,” he says, frowning. “I ran into Sara and she was talking about how different it was here and it just… it felt like the right time.”

 

“Like fate,” Felicity says, remembering their conversation from months ago. “You said it felt like fate.”

 

“I just meant it felt like things lined up right,” he admits, sounding more confused than when they’d started.

 

“Like something was telling you to come here,” she presses.

 

“Maybe,” he shrugs and she watches his shoulders move. Too chicken shit to look him in the eye. Some powerful witch she is, couldn’t even smell the magic right under her nose. He tries again, “Felicity, whatever this is, let’s just talk about it, okay? I can come in and make dinner and we can just-“

 

“No,” she says before he can finish, shaking her head. Because, if he comes inside, she’ll never let him leave. She’ll hole up with him and ignore it, pretend they can live this lie and everything will be fine.

 

“Felicity,” he says softly, repeating her name in an attempt to get her to look at him. She’s always loved the way it sounds on his lips, like he’s discovered extra syllables she didn’t know were hiding there. “Please.”

 

“I’m sorry,” she offers, though she know it won’t mean much right now. She finally looks up at him. “I know this doesn’t make a lot of sense right now, but I can’t do this anymore. You don’t love me and I won’t go on making you pretend that you do.”

 

“You’re right,” he says and her chest tightens, because she hadn’t expected it to work so quickly. “That  _ doesn’t  _ make any sense.”

 

She huffs. “You don’t get it.”

 

“Then, explain it to me,” he argues, his own voice taking on a hard edge. Good. If he’s angry with her, maybe he’ll listen to her and just let this happen.

 

“I can’t explain it,” she says, glaring at him. “It’s too complicated and, even if I could, I shouldn’t have to. I’m breaking up with you, Oliver. I don’t have to explain myself.”

 

“The hell you don’t,” he bites. “This isn’t some two week relationship we got bored with. I love you. That should earn me something.”

 

“Well, it doesn’t,” she says. “And, besides, I told you. You’re not in love with me.”

 

“How can you tell me how I feel?” He asks. “What makes you so sure you know better than me?”

 

“Because I just- ugh,” she groans, pressing the heels of her hands to her eyes. The throw falls from her shoulders, pooling at her feet, and she realizes how hot she had become wrapped up in the thing. Goosebumps break out over her skin as the breeze comes from behind Oliver, drifting over her skin.

 

The fight goes out of her. Cold acceptance settles into her chest.

 

“You’ll be okay,” she says softly, trying to sound gentle rather than like her heart is fracturing between her ribs. “In a few days, you’ll wake up and feel like this never happened. You’ll realize I was right and it’ll be easy to move on. I promise.”

 

“I don’t accept that,” Oliver says and she looks up to realize his eyes are so bright, reflecting all the hurt and confusion she’s poured onto him. If nothing else, maybe she’ll make him hate her. And, once they’ve finished, she can get away with not having to spend time around him.

 

She already misses him and he’s only a foot away.

 

“I’m doing this because I do love you, Oliver,” she admits. “And I really want you to be happy. This is the best way I know how to make sure that happens.”

 

“Felicity,” he breathes, her name breaking in half on his tongue. She bites down on her lip, hard enough to leave behind the indent of her incisor.

 

“Please, just,” she says squeezing her eyes shut and pulling the door towards herself, beginning to close it without shutting it entirely in his face. “Just go, okay?”

 

When she shuts the door this time, with Oliver standing on her porch, the wind doesn’t carry his words away. The sky is bright and cloudless. His broken “okay” is etched into her mind.

 

\---

 

The most terrible thing about a breakup is that it’s not an acceptable excuse to stop living. 

 

That’s a lie, she knows. There are many, many more terrible things about this breakup. Like the way every room, every surface in her house is colored by memories of Oliver. Of him cooking in her kitchen. Reading on her couch. Lying under her, naked and sated, on her bed. She scrubs and cleanses and purifies everything with citrus and lavender. He lingers like a ghost.

 

Still, she has to carry on as if her world hasn’t shifted in a sudden and horrible way. There are computers to fix and antiviruses to install. Donna lets her beg off of spending time with the entire group, though Felicity refuses to give her details about Sara’s meddling, but insists on having dinner.

 

Neither of them can cook, so they order takeout and somehow that, too, makes her miss Oliver.

 

She feels like she’s on auto pilot. Moving around, doing everything she’s expected to, but hardly present as she does. Until something happens – something funny or interesting or unexpected – and she moves to call him, to text him, to share this part of her life with him.

 

It’s strange the way people become a part of normal life. Stranger yet how you don’t seem to realize it until they’re gone.

 

It happens with Sara, too. Sara, her best friend since high school, who helped her through every heartache with magicless curses and toothless teasing. She picks up the phone to call her, too, when the night is quiet and her bed is too cold with one person in it and she just needs to cry while someone listens. But, she’s lost both of them in one fell swoop.

 

Somewhere, the fates are laughing at her. Wicked and taunting, rolling in fits over her blunders. The stupidest little witch who fell for a love spell.

 

Amaya and Zari do their best to mediate, but Sara’s response has been similar to Felicity’s. Neither of them are speaking to the other. Which is actually pretty predictable because Sara’s always been shit at apologizing and Felicity had outright told her she didn’t want to hear it anyway.

 

So, Felicity isolates herself, because it’s easier than pretending everything is normal. Amaya brings over food from Dinah’s and tries to get her to talk about it. Zari comes over and gets her to watch slasher movies. They’re trying and she’s grateful, but there’s something about this breakup that’s worse than any in recent memory. Felicity figures it’s just the spell affecting her as well, though she knows what she feels for Oliver wasn’t based on any magic. It was just him.

 

Either way, she’s growing accustomed to unannounced visits from her friends.

 

She’s cleaning out the fridge, cautiously opening takeout containers to sniff the contents and decide whether to toss them or not. The trash can is pulled out from under the sink a few feet away and a couple take out containers float in mid-air, waiting for her to decide if she’s actually likely to eat the leftovers or not.

 

When the doorbell rings, she considers ignoring it. But she knows that a closed door has never really been enough to stop her friends when they’re worried about her. She grabs the containers from the air and tosses them into the bin. The person at the door wails on the doorbell again and she groans.

 

“I’m coming, I’m coming,” she grumbles, kicking the door to the fridge closed and heading down the hallway. She’s ready to assure Zari or Amaya that she’s fine and she just needs an evening to herself, to clean the house and cleanse the energy, and surely they can understand that.

 

What she isn’t ready for is Sara on the other side. She holds a brown paper bag in one hand and brandishes a bottle of tequila in the other. She offers Felicity a nervous smile.

 

“Hi,” she says while Felicity just stares at her for a moment. “I figured you’d be more likely to let me in if I came bearing gifts.”

 

Uncomfortable under Felicity’s silence, she shifts the bag around a little.

 

“Like margarita mixings,” she tries again. Felicity sighs, her shoulders falling. She wants to be mad at Sara, she really does. And she had been for a few days. But, mostly, she’s just sad and disappointed.

 

“Margaritas can’t fix this, Sara,” she says quietly. The wind chimes move in the breeze behind Sara, knocking against each other and giving a soft noise. She still hasn’t replaced them.

 

“I know,” Sara nods. “But I’m hoping it could be a start.”

 

The thing Felicity has learned about feuding with friends – especially friends like Sara – is that it’s hard to stay mad. No matter how much she might want to, she knows Sara well enough to know that what she did wasn’t out of malicious intent. It’s going to continue to sting, but it’ll be worse if they don’t work it out, or at least try to.

 

She sighs and pushes the door wide, welcoming Sara in. The tall white candle against the wall catches flame as Sara enters.

 

“I don’t have any food,” she warns.

 

“Even better,” Sara says, grinning wide as she moves past her.

 

Felicity continues to clean out her fridge while Sara finds the blender and makes them margaritas. They talk around things for a while – about their moms, or work, or Nyssa, though Sara’s romance makes the air tense for a few moments – until the tequila makes Felicity unable to do that anymore.

 

“Why did you do it?” She asks, watching Sara salt the glasses for the next round of margaritas. She stalls for a moment, the lime in her hand dripping juice down the side of the glass. “I know you like chaos, but couldn’t you have left my life alone?”

 

“It wasn’t about chaos,” Sara says, swiping the lime the rest of the way around the lip of the glass before overturning it into the plate of salt. “I just thought- well, I don’t know what I thought, exactly. But it had been a while since you’d been interested in anyone and I thought, you know, if you had some wild fling for a little bit it might help you get back into the swing of it.”

 

“And running into Oliver just offered the right opportunity,” Felicity surmises.

 

“No,” Sara says, turning to her with a frown. “I did the spell before I left for the wedding. It was just a general love spell for the universe, you know? But,” she shrugs, turns back and rights the glass before filling it with the frozen drink. “I guess running into Oliver set it into motion.”

 

Felicity nods, taking one of the glasses from Sara when she holds it out to her. It doesn’t make her feel better. She hadn’t really thought it would, knowing why. Because the why doesn’t change things. It doesn’t make it hurt less.

 

Sara takes a breath and she’s surprised by the shaky sound of it, the way she leans back against the counter and wraps her arms around herself protectively.

 

“You know what my sister said to me?” she asks. “After the wedding.”

 

Felicity shakes her head. Sara hadn’t mentioned having any sort of negative encounter with her sister.

 

“She caught me using my magic to fuck around, right?” Sara shrugs. “Just, you know, whatever. Having some fun. She cornered me and accused me of trying to ruin the day for her. I don’t know, maybe I was trying to ruin it a little. But she caught me and cornered me and she said…”

 

She stops for a minute, looking up to the ceiling. Felicity recognizes the move. She wants to hide the way her eyes have filled with tears, stop them from rolling down her cheeks.

 

“She said I’d never be happy because I can’t stand anything normal or boring,” she continues. “That I’ll never be anything more than a miserable witch. A bad witch.”

 

“Sara,” Felicity breathes, wishing she could take back the words she’d tossed so callously outside of the cafe.

 

“I don’t want to be just a witch, Felicity,” she says, looking back down to meet her eyes. The tears are still there, but she holds them in. “I want to be more than that.”

 

Felicity sighs. When she was in college, she and Zari had a little group of magic users. They were the only two with real, genetic powers. The others used the elements and made potions, but they couldn’t do the things Felicity and Zari could. Her boyfriend at the time, Cooper, had still taken on the role as de facto leader. And Felicity had, for lack of a better phrase, fallen so easily under his spell.

 

He’d convinced her to use her magic in ways she knew were bad. But he’d built her up and then he’d used her. And it had cost her so much. But it had cost Cooper his life.

 

Since then, she’d learned not to depend on her magic. But, lately, she’s learning the balance between not using it and overusing it. Something about being with Oliver had made her feel powerful, had reconnected her to her magic.

 

Maybe it was just the spell, but she doesn’t want to lose that.

 

“So, be more,” she tells Sara. “Figure out what that means for you. Magic is a part of us, a part we can’t ignore, no matter how hard we might try. But, Sara, it’s not the only thing and I already know you’re more than just a witch. But maybe it’s time you let yourself figure out what more you are.”

 

Sara lets out a watery chuckle, sniffling and rolling her eyes at herself.

 

“I should have come to you months ago,” she says with a smile. “You always have a way with words.”

 

Felicity smiles back, reaching out and taking Sara’s free hand in her own, squeezing gently. The room goes still around them for a moment, settling comfortably as the pain they’ve both been holding sits open in front of them. It’s not a fix for what Sara’s done, but it doesn’t feel insurmountable either.

 

“Amaya told me you ended things,” Sara says after a moment, taking her hand back. Felicity nods. “Have you heard from him since?”

 

Felicity shakes her head. She’d closed the door on Oliver and he hadn’t tried to reach out. There’s a box of his things – left throughout her house, in the bathroom, in his drawer – in the hallway upstairs. She keeps meaning to bring it down, to return it, but she can’t. That stupid military jacket she’d picked out for him on Halloween sits on top and she resists the urge to see if it still smells of him.

 

“No,” she sighs. “I figure the break up broke the spell.”

 

“Felicity, maybe it doesn’t have to be so black and white,” Sara suggests. “Maybe you can still make things work. It doesn’t have to change things.”

 

“It does change things,” Felicity says.

 

“Why?”

 

“It just does,” she insists, sipping from her drink. She lets the sharp taste of the salt, followed by the bitterness of the alcohol, numb her tongue. She wishes it could numb the rest of her.

 

“He loves you,” Sara argues. “You don’t know that’s changed.”

 

“He loved me because magic told him to,” she huffs, sending a dark look over towards her friend. “And what about when that wears off? What if one day he wakes up and he realizes he doesn’t love me, that he never loved me? And then he leaves and it’s just… it’s just me left to pick up the pieces.”

 

“Like your mom had to.”

 

It hurts but only because it’s true. It hurts because it’s a base part of her that may never leave, that may always keep her from believing someone will stay. It hurts because there’s some small part of her that’s still a lost little girl who can’t understand why she wasn’t good enough.

 

“Your dad wasn’t under a spell, Felicity,” Sara says, her voice even as she sets her glass down and holds Felicity’s gaze until it’s too much and Felicity is the one to look away. “I know that sounds harsh, but just listen to me. People leave. They fall out of love, they cheat, they change. Whatever the reason, sometimes people do leave. That’s a risk we take every time we open our hearts and it’s terrifying, but if you keep yourself from trying because someone you love might leave, you’re not saving yourself. You’re being a coward.”

 

Felicity flinches at the words, ready to bite back at her. Sara doesn’t give her the chance.

 

“And you, Felicity Smoak, are not a coward.”

 

She frowns, not sure how to respond to that. Maybe Sara’s right. Maybe she’s been running from the possibility of getting hurt again for years. It’s kept her from dating, from taking risks. But this isn’t just her fear. This is different than any normal break up. She doesn’t know how to just move past it.

 

She opens her mouth, hoping to find some way to explain how it feels. The kind of pain that has buried itself under her ribs, deep into her chest, from loving someone who could only love her because of a spell. Before she can even try, her doorbell rings again.

 

She spins around towards the hallway, frowning.

 

“Did you tell Zari and Amaya you were coming by?” She asks, figuring that maybe if they thought there was a chance at reconciliation, they’d have found an excuse to come over to check on them.

 

Sara shakes her head in the negative.

 

Felicity sets her drink down and heads out of the kitchen, down the hall towards her front door. She hates that some part of herself, some useless hopeful piece that refuses to give up, flutters at the thought it might be Oliver. She has to stop her hand from shaking as she unlocks the deadbolt and pulls the door open.

 

Billy stands on the other side.

 

“Oh,” she says, hoping she sounds more surprised than disappointed. “Um, hi.”

 

“Hi,” he says back, but the word falls on a huff. He looks rattled, anxious. There are circles under his eyes and his usually styled hair is askew.

 

“What are you doing here?” She asks slowly, frowning at him.

 

“I,” he starts, haltingly. He frowns and shakes his head. “Don’t know.”

 

“Okay,” she says, dragging the word out in her confusion. Suddenly she feels all too uncomfortable standing in the doorway with him on her porch. It’s too familiar, she realizes, to her last encounter with Oliver and it makes her chest ache. She takes a step back. “Do you want to come in?”

 

He nods, breezing past her but stopping a few steps inside. Billy spins back around to face her, dragging a hand through his hair.

 

“Sorry to just show up like this but I,” he starts again and she realizes he seems erratic, cutting himself off, unsure of his own words. “Well, it’s hard to explain and it probably makes me sound absolutely crazy. But, I think I’m in love with you.”

 

The tequila threatens to come back up her stomach.

 

“What?” She asks on a flustered laugh.

 

“Yeah,” he nods. “Like I said, crazy. But, I can’t really explain it. I thought it was just a crush, right? And I could move on and it would be fine. But I haven’t stopped thinking about you since we met and, God, I think I may have imagined you before then. That sounds creepy, I know. I don’t know how to shake it.”

 

Felicity only stares at him for a moment, blinking rapidly and trying to make sense of the situation she’s found herself in.

 

“After you told me you were seeing someone, I thought that would be the end of it,” he goes on. “But it hasn’t been. And I’ve actually met someone who should be perfect for me. But, I can’t pursue anything because I really can’t get you out of my mind. Then, I heard you and Oliver broke up and I just… I don’t know. I ended up here.”

 

“Billy,” she says, frowning. Pieces are sliding into place and, God, she wants to be right about this. Everything would make so much more sense. “When did you move to town?”

 

He stares at her, confused, but says, “The first week of October last year.”

 

Something hits the floor in the kitchen and, for a moment, Felicity can only gape at him. The math moves in her mind and, well, Sara’s reaction probably as much as confirms it.

 

It was never Oliver.

 

“Can you just,” she starts, holding her hands out as she skirts around Billy in the hallway, “wait here? Just for a moment?”

 

She takes quick steps, nearly sprinting the last of the short distance to reach the kitchen. The plastic tequila bottle rolls on the floor and Sara is staring wide eyed at her as she enters.

 

“It was Billy,” she hisses and Felicity nods, trying not to let her excitement at the explanation get the best of her. “Well, either that’s a love spell or he’s kind of a stalker.”

 

“Only one way to find out,” Felicity says, moving around Sara to pull down some things from her spice cabinet. She directs Sara, having her fill the porcelain kettle on the counter and set it on the stove to boil.

 

“Spell breaker?” Sara asks and she nods, dropping a bag of green tea into a mug and sprinkling some cayenne pepper over it.

 

“You have to do it,” she says, holding the mug out to Sara for her to say the spell. “You cast it, so you have to be the one to break it.”

 

Hesitantly, Sara nods. She takes the mug from Felicity hands and moves to the other side of the kitchen with it. Felicity stays by the stove, waiting for the water to boil as Sara casts the spell over the tea and spice. She brings it back to Felicity as the tea kettle whistles on the stove and a gray smoke pours from the lip once they fill it.

 

Felicity leaves Sara in the kitchen and waits until the smoke has cleared over the mug before she takes it back out to Billy.

 

“Drink this,” she instructs.

 

“What is it?” He frowns, staring down at the murky liquid. The cayenne powder has floated to the top, likely to be a shock on his tongue, but useful for breaking spells.

 

“Tea,” she answers simply. “It’ll help your nerves. Trust me.”

 

He nods, blowing on the tea before he takes a drink from it. She watches him flinch at the taste, but the spell draws him in and he goes back for a larger drink. He finishes it quick and she gently takes the mug back from him.

 

“Can you do me a favor?” She asks and Billy nods. “Can you just sleep on this? If you’re still in love with me in the morning, then we’ll talk about it, okay?”

 

Billy seems hesitant to leave it at that and Felicity understands. She’s sure the past year hasn’t been easy for him, caught under a love spell he didn’t know about for a woman who had been unavailable. He’d probably been driving himself crazy over his feelings. It’s amazing he’d held out as long as he had on coming to her about it.

 

“Okay,” he says finally, stepping slowly around her to get back to the door. She lets him let himself out, but he stops before he pulls the door all the way shut and says, “I’m so sorry, Felicity.”

 

She’s frozen for a long few moments, holding the porcelain mug so tightly in her hands she fears it may fracture. But she can’t make her grip loosen. Can’t force away this feeling in her chest. It feels like hope, but it has sharp claws that scratch at her lungs and each breath is painful as she sucks in air.

 

Sara peaks her head out of the kitchen.

 

“Did it work?” She asks. Felicity just shrugs, staring down the hallway instead of making eye contact with her. Sara steps into the hallway, waves a hand in front of Felicity’s face and says, “Hey. This is a good thing! It means that Oliver was never under my love spell.”

 

Felicity blinks a few times, shaking her head and breaking herself out of her stupor.

 

“No, I know,” she nods.

 

“And yet, for some reason, you don’t look happy about it,” Sara frowns.

 

Felicity looks down, studying the remains inside the mug. The cayenne that’s settled at the bottom has turned it an orange color, staining the cloth of the teabag. She’s never learned to read tea leaves - not that the remnants of the bagged leaves would really tell her anything anyway - but the swirls in the cayenne make shapes that play at her mind. She wonders what they would tell her.

 

“If Oliver isn’t under a spell,” she considers, looking back up at Sara, “why hasn’t he tried to fight for me?”

 

Sara shakes her head, sighing and taking the mug out of Felicity’s death grip.

 

“You broke up with him,” she reminds her. “Maybe he’s waiting for you to fight for him.”

 

\---

 

In Felicity’s defense, she does try. She calls a few times and sends him a text asking him to call her and, short of showing up at his apartment unannounced, she’s done everything she’s comfortable doing. And, she has considered showing up at his apartment. But, well, if he’s really just decided that he doesn’t want to be with her, then that would be too embarrassing.

 

“Don’t you think you’re giving up a little easy?”

 

It’s Zari who asks the question and it’s dripping with judgement. They’re helping set up Sara’s booth for the Halloween festival. She’s rented a dark purple tent and there’s incense burning in the corner and fairy lights decorating the table where her cards are laid out. It’s all very stereotypical, but Felicity figures that means people will eat it up.

 

“Can we stop talking about it?” She asks, smoothing out the dark red cloth covering the cheap plastic table. It feels like somehow they always end up talking about Oliver and, really, the continuous addition of salt into a wound that hasn’t even begun to heal isn’t helping.

 

She still hasn’t heard from him. So, it’s probably time to accept that.

 

“No,” Zari says, holding her ground. “You’re acting like he’s gone and there’s nothing you can do about it, but you can.”

 

“I tried calling him, okay?” Felicity insists, feeling irritated at being berated. “He clearly doesn’t want to hear from me.”

 

Gary sidels into the tent, dipping inside from under one of the side panels rather than through the front opening. He stretches his front paws and gives a yawn before leaping up onto the table. His nails bunch the cloth up and Felicity frowns, smoothing it out once again.

 

“Let it go, Zari,” Amaya says gently.

 

“Whatever,” she grumbles, waving at the smoke billowing up from the incense. It disperses the smell around the tent and makes Felicity feel fuzzy. Gary reaches up and bats at her scarf, his claws catching in the material.

 

“Where is Sara?” Zari asks. “Shouldn’t she be helping us set up her attraction?”

 

“She’s checking in with the main tent,” Felicity says, attempting to shoo Gary away from her scarf. He’s undeterred, backing away only for a moment before going after the fringe on her scarf again. “Stop it, Gary. No!”

 

He gives an ugly little mewl and swipes ferociously. His claws catch entirely in the fabric and his paw tightens, tugging it and backing off of the table with it caught in his paw. The scarf pulls from Felicity’s neck and she isn’t quick enough to catch it. Gary drops it only for a moment before taking it up in his mouth and darting through the opening of the tent.

 

“Hey!” She cries, running after him. She hears Amaya and Zari gasp and laugh behind her. “Come back here, you mangy thing!”

 

She follows him through the building crowd as the other vendors and attractions set up and early attendees catch a glimpse behind the curtains. Her boots are, blessedly, flat, but Gary is a stray and he’s street-wise. He dips in and out of people, under tables and between tents and booths. Felicity pants as she attempts to catch him, close enough not to lose sight of him, but too far to grab him or her scarf as it drags over the concrete.

 

He disappears behind a food truck and Felicity follows him around the corner of it. She nearly trips over the cat where he’s stopped, sat cleaning his paw with her scarf at his feet.

 

“You are such a little asshole, do you know that?” She asks, glaring at him. She doesn’t expect him to respond with words, but he gives a distinguished little huff and switches to cleaning his other paw.

 

She stoops to grab her scarf and straightens when another pair of feet come around the other side of the food truck. They stop behind Gary and she freezes.

 

“Felicity?” Oliver asks, as if he isn’t sure it’s her. She wraps her scarf tight around her hand and pulls it so tight she might lose circulation.

 

“Hi,” she says.

 

“Hi,” he echoes. Gary gives a meow that Felicity would almost classify as annoyed and trots off, leaving them alone, hidden behind the large food truck. Felicity watches the traitorous feline disappear, but she can feel Oliver’s eyes on her. “Were you looking for me?”

 

“No,” she says, too quickly. Defensively. She pulls the scarf tighter around her hand. “I mean, I was just helping Sara set up and then Gary stole my scarf so I was chasing him down and, well, now I’m here. And so are you.”

 

Nervous. God, how can she be so nervous around him? Her skin vibrates and she fears she may combust into light if she can’t control her magic. It still pulls toward him, longs for him. It wants desperately to show off for him, she thinks.

 

“Yeah,” Oliver nods. “Yeah, I’ve been helping set up the haunted maze. The hardware store was supplying the tools and wood, so I figured offering to help was the least I could do.”

 

Felicity nods, suddenly uncomfortable. She loops the scarf once more around her hand, limiting the movement of her fingers.

 

“I thought you might be,” Oliver starts, tilting his head, but stops himself and seems to shake it off. He looks past her now, over her shoulder to the storefronts behind her. “I don’t know why but I thought you might’ve been trying to find me.”

 

“I didn’t know you were gonna be here,” she says, but it’s not quite what she means. She means she hadn’t wanted to hope. But Oliver’s face hardens and she knows how it sounds, as if she may be trying to avoid him.

 

Does he not know she’d called? Perhaps he was the one hoping to avoid her.

 

“I called you,” she says instead, when the silence has stretched too long and she aches to hold him far more than she cares to hold onto her pride. “A couple times, but I figured, after what I said, you just didn’t want to hear from me.”

 

“My phone’s been broken,” he explains, frowning. He’s looking at her again now, his eyes trained on her face as his brow pinches. “I kept meaning to get it fixed, but every time I thought about it I… you were the only person I wanted to take it to.”

 

“Oh,” she says, frowning. “You know, you should really take it to your provider if it’s broken. I don’t really fix phones. I mean, I suppose I could replace your screen if that’s it, but even then you should-”

 

“Felicity,” he says, cutting her off in that tired way he has when she’s lost herself in a tangle of words. It’s so familiar her chest aches with it. “I don’t really want to talk about my phone right now.”

 

“Right,” she whispers, falling back on her heels and holding her tongue.

 

“You broke up with me,” he says, the reminder unnecessary. It breaks over her regardless, freezing in the chilled autumn air and lingering between them. His voice is low, confused and hurt. “You told me to go, but you didn’t really tell me why.”

 

“I know,” she says, taking a hasty step towards him. She restrains herself from reaching out to him, unsure whether the touch would be welcome. “And it’s so complicated to explain, but I want to explain. Or, I want to try.”

 

“Okay,” Oliver nods. “I’m listening.”

 

“What- now?” Felicity asks, looking around wildly. “ _ Here _ ?”

 

They’re alone on this side of the food truck, but just beyond she can hear the chatter of people as the booths open and the street begins to fill. It would be easy for someone to just duck around the corner and find them standing here. It’s not exactly the most private location and the things she needs to tell him, they should just be between them.

 

“Why not?” Oliver asks, frowning and glancing around as well. Felicity figures he just sees the empty area and doubts any of the people on the other side are interested in their conversation.

 

“It’s just,” she starts and then huffs. She doesn’t hesitate this time, reaching towards him and snagging his wrist. “Come on.”

 

She tugs him back into the crowd, dodging people and vendors. Oliver trails behind her, letting her lead the way as her hand slides from his wrist to link their fingers. He doesn’t seem to be complaining.

 

Finally, they duck out of the crowd filling the street and into a familiar alley between storefronts. Felicity stops, leaning against the wall and panting a little from her hasty steps. Oliver is chuckling, penning her in against the bricks.

 

“What are we doing exactly?” He asks, amusement pulling at his lips, the corners of his eyes crinkling. She’d kiss him if things were normal. She nearly does, even pushing up onto her toes before she remembers herself. Talking has to come first, she knows.

 

He’s caught up in it, too, she can tell. Sees the way his body sways to meet hers, the humor falls from his features. Words seem so tedious and unimportant, she wishes she could skip this part. Make things right with a snap of her fingers and be kissing him breathless.

 

But that’s what had gotten them all into this mess. So, she takes a deep breath and she does what she’s always done best. She talks.

 

“I ran because I was scared,” she starts in a rush and Oliver falls back, allowing her more space. “But not of you or how fast we were going. I was scared because- well, like I said, it’s complicated. But I thought that you only loved me because the universe told you to and not because you had a choice. And I didn’t want that choice to be taken from you, I wanted you to make it on your own-”

 

Here, he cuts her off.

 

“That doesn’t make any sense,” he frowns. “What do you mean the universe told me to?”

 

“It doesn’t matter anymore,” she says, shaking her head and trying to organize her thoughts. “Because the universe didn’t tell you to. And I know that now, because of Billy.”

 

“Billy?” He asks, sounding more confused. She pouts, not sure how to make this make more sense for him.

 

“Yeah, he showed up at my house a few days ago and told me he loved me,” she explains and, when she realizes Oliver is going to be caught on that part, rushes on. “But that’s not the important part. The important part is that you do love me, or I hope you still love me, and that it wasn’t due to some cosmic intervention. It’s just because of me.”

 

“I still don’t understand,” he sighs and she can tell he’s growing frustrated with her. Felicity considers him, considers the way her skin still buzzes simply from his proximity, that she may begin to lose control of her magic just from having him near her again.

 

And she decides to rip the bandage off.

 

“Look, okay, there- there’s something you don’t know about me,” she says. “And I know it’s gonna sound insane, but I just need you to keep an open mind because-”

 

“I know you’re a witch.”

 

Felicity swears the entire world around them freezes for a moment. The wind dies down and her heart stops for a moment before it begins hammering, unbidden, in her chest. Oliver is watching her like he’s waiting for her to say something, like he hasn’t shifted her whole world with five small words.

 

“What?” She breathes.

 

“I know you’re a witch,” he repeats. “Or, at least, that there’s something actually magical about you.”

 

“ _ How _ ?” She asks, sure she must look like a fool staring at him with wide-eyes, mouth agape. He laughs, like she shouldn’t be shocked that he knows.

 

“Felicity,” he says, shaking his head. “Even without all of the weird town gossip, which I know better than to listen to anyway, you use crystals for healing and keep bay leaves in the corner of rooms. You pull car parts no one even makes anymore out of thin air. And, sometimes, your hands glow when we have sex.”

 

She pauses, tucking her hands behind her back, pinned between her body and the brick wall.

 

“You knew?” She asks quietly.

 

“I only saw it for a moment,” he explains. “And I figured I’d imagined it. You never mentioned it, so I just figured it was nothing. But, I figured it out eventually and I just… I guess I figured you weren’t ready to tell me or maybe you didn’t trust me enough yet.”

 

“It wasn’t about trusting you,” she insists, taking a step towards him on instinct. Her hands are still tucked behind her back, fear suddenly coursing through her now that he knows. She thought the truth would be easier. “I’ve only ever told one other person that wasn’t also a witch. And he used it against me.”

 

“And you thought I could do that to you?” He asks and she hates that he sounds almost hurt by it.

 

“I’ve spent so much time running from my magic and from letting people get too close to it,” she tries to explain. “But, with you, it was different. Something in me calls for you, since the moment we met. And that was terrifying, but wonderful.”

 

“So, why run?” Oliver asks and this time he takes the step forward. His hands skim over her biceps, down her arms, easing her hands out from behind her to take in his own.

 

“It’s… a long story,” she says slowly, feeling suddenly lightheaded at his touch. Her magic buzzes just beneath her skin and it takes more effort to keep it in check suddenly. “But, the short version  is that there was a love spell and I thought that you were under it. So, I thought I was doing the right thing by letting you go. No matter how badly I wanted you.”

 

“Wanted?” Oliver echoes, emphasizing the past tense. “Because, I’m guessing you’ve realized there’s no love spell affecting me so… what does that mean?”

 

She laughs, squeezing his hands and watching the light from her skin pool between their entwined fingers. Oliver stares down at them, struck by the sight of her magic. Her palms are warm and the vibrating feeling in her skin settles where it’s pressed against his. Like it’s finally found what it’s been looking for.

 

“Oliver, I love you,” she says, watching him as he watches her magic. Maybe it’s the sudden release of the power she’s been keeping pent up, or the way his face is lit with wonder, with the light from her magic, but she feels the sting of tears at the back of her eyes. And yet, she can stop smiling.

 

“I don’t know if it’s the universe or fate or whatever but I don’t care,” she goes on and Oliver’s gaze moves from her hands to her face. “Because I just love you and I’m sorry that I let it scare me. I understand if any of this changes things for you, but I’m hoping-”

 

His hands pull from hers and the light dies in her palms. For just a second, her heart drops in her chest as he pulls away. And then he cups her jaw in his hands and covers her mouth with his own and, even with her eyes closed, she can see the light from her hands, blazing between them until she buries them in his hair.

 

“I love you,” he says, the words whispered against her lips in between kisses. “Witch or not, fate or not, I love you. So, please, don’t run from me again.”

 

“I’m not going anywhere,” she promise. She whispers the words to him, sends them out to the universe. Says them like an oath, a spell, a prayer. Oliver lets out a small breath, like he’d been waiting for the assurance.

 

Felicity presses up onto her toes and seals it with a kiss.

**Author's Note:**

> The second part should be up on Sunday!


End file.
